The Womb Is No Protection From Toxic Chemicals

Until a few decades ago, the popular but falsely reassuring belief was that babies in the womb were perfectly protected by the placenta and that children were just “little adults,” requiring no special protections from environmental threats. We now know that a host of chemicals, pollutants and viruses readily travel across the placenta from mother to fetus, pre-polluting or pre-infecting a baby even before birth.

"The Womb Is No Protection From Toxic Chemicals" is from the May 31, 2017 Opinion section of The New York Times. It was written by Frederica Perera and narrated by Fleet Cooper.