Mothers' Exposure To India’s Worsening Air Pollution Impacts Baby's Birth Weight

India's air pollution worsened in 2021, according to the World Air Quality Report released by IQAir. This ends a three-year trend of improving air quality. The average air pollution, measured in the lethal and microscopic PM2.5 pollutant, is 58.1 micrograms per cubic meter, which is more than 10 times the World Health Organisation's (WHO) air quality guidelines. No city in India met the WHO standard. The economic cost of the crisis to India is estimated at over $150 billion annually. The health impact is far worse with an estimated three deaths every minute linked to air pollution in addition to heart and lung diseases and many other severe health effects.

Another study, published in the journal Environmental Research, also revealed that the association with air pollution was stronger among female babies and first births - a fact that is thought to be due to a biological mechanism that is yet to be identified. The key factors include – mothers who are underweight, come from lower socioeconomic background, and were more exposed to the possibility of being affected by air pollution. The study clearly showed the association between the level of the air pollutant PM2.5 and low birth weight.

With 63, Indian cities dominate the list of 100 most polluted places. More than half are in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. An air quality 'life index' developed by the University of Chicago shows that residents in Delhi and Lucknow, for instance, could add about a decade to their life expectancy if air quality levels met the WHO's standards.

All six metro cities except Chennai saw a rise in air pollution levels last year. Incidentally, the cleanest air measured in India is in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu. But even that is three times WHO's safe levels. The association of air pollutants with low birth weight raises the question of whether the governments should take the impact on the developing baby into account and increase its efforts to reduce pollution.

The list of Indian cities with most polluted air quality levels: