risks to unborn baby (first/second trimester)
What are the risks of current levels of radiation from Japan in California to unborn babies, especially in the 1st and 2nd trimester. Should pregnant women be worried about possible harmful effects on the fetus? There doesn't seem to be enough information about this topic. Please help....
150 micrograms
The American Thyroid Association recommends that women receive 150 ug iodine supplements daily during pregnancy and lactation and that all prenatal vitamin/mineral preparations contain 150 ug of iodine.
http://www.thyroid.org/professionals/publications/statements/documents/A...
Because of the increased daily requirement during pregnancy and the increased renal excretion of iodine during pregnancy, the UI concentration should be higher for pregnant than nonpregnant adults. A recent WHO Technical Consultant Group recommended that the median UI during pregnancy should range between 150 and 249 ug iodine/L, whereas median UI concentrations greater than 250 ug/L are more than adequate and above 500 ug/L, excessive (7). The corresponding optimal iodine intake for pregnancy and lactation, therefore, should be between 225 and 375 ug per day.
RADS to the Unborn
RADS to the Unborn
Radiation Dose to the Embryo/Fetus
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/reg-guides/occupational-he...
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML0037/ML003739548.pdf
Regulatory Guide 8.36 - Radiation Dose to the Embryo/Fetus
Calculating the radiation dose to the embryo/fetus from internally deposited radionuclides requires quantitative information about maternal radionuclide intake, placental transfer and kinetics, and resulting embryo/fetus radionuclide concentrations. Intakes of radioactive material occurring prior to the pregnancy may also be important if these materials remain in the pregnant woman during all or part of the gestation period. Transfer kinetics from the mother to the embryo/fetus are modeled as a function of stage of pregnancy, route of intake by the pregnant woman, and time after intake. The stage of gestation (or fetal development) is an important parameter in estimating radionuclide concentrations in the embryo/fetus. The geometry of the embryo/fetus (i.e., size and weight) affects the radionuclide dosimetry.
This is a major problem, in
This is a major problem, in Japan; much less so for North America, for the present.
In my humble opinion, a degree of environmental exposure caution was approprate from Mid-March until Mid-May, in the USA.
Food and water cautions, for the USA, are, again in my opinion, still appropriate, particularly for pregnant women, lactating women, pubescent girls and all children under age 15.
The 'safe foods' threads on this BRAWM webpage are informative and eclectic. It is not all good advice, but it covers the subject area.
First trimester pregnancy
I check this website 5 times a day because of my twins. We need answers from the EPA. It isn't right we have to do all the research ourselves. I am at 11 weeks now and if anyone can give any advice about how to clear radioactivity from tap water would be helpful . I take quick showers only when necessary. Would a carbon filter do the right thing? Or is reverse osmosis better? I only drink bottled water arrowhead mountain spring. I boil with it too. Any suggestions?
Thanks for your help.
RO & KI
Purchase an inexpensive counter-top Reverse Osmosis (RO) unit and quit worrying about the tap water.
Consider purchasing an under-sink unit, as your finances and situation (rent/own) may indicate.
One other, matter...
The American Thyroid association recommends that prenatal vitamins in the USA should contain approximately 130 micrograms of potassium iodide, KI. This is NOT the 'radiation pill' dosage. Does your prenatal vitamin have that component. Many do not. While the radioactive iodine concern has faded, for the USA, the good nutrition concern remains.
If radioactivity is your
If radioactivity is your concern, boiling the water will not help you.
If you are truly worried, avoid rainwater (a good idea anyway) and use carbon filters if you want.
My wife is in the same
My wife is in the same situation as you and decides to only drink carbon-filtered water (you can use e.g. Brita pitcher filter or New Wave faucet filter, as well as other companies products). Until the federal DOE decides to release crucial data about drinking water and soil contamination to the public, it is better to be safe than sorry, in particular in the light of the increasing iodine and cesium measurements in rain water posted on this site, knowing that a substantial part of that rain water is already in our tap water (could be 1% or 90%, nobody knows).
Physicist care to update us?
Physicist care to update us?
Mine too...
She's just at 3 months (living in LA near the beach) and I'm concerned about the lack of data about how small/trace amounts of radioisotope ingestion can effect a developing fetus.
There's a fairly recent study of low level Chernobyl fallout in Sweden (http://www.nber.org/~almond/revision_nov6.pdf) concluding that "our findings suggest that neural development is
compromised at radiation doses currently considered safe." Has anyone else come across useful data on this?
My wife doesn't seem to be concerned and I certainly don't want to be alarmist, but the downside risk to not mitigating exposure is obviously quite high...
WH
I'm concerned that your wife
I'm concerned that your wife is not concerned.
Hi WH
I don't think you're an alarmist. I'm in my 2nd trimester and VERY concerned about what is considered 'safe' for both my toddler and the baby in my womb. So, we're drinking our backup earthquake water supply and I am only taking cowboy showers using filtered water from are carbon sink filter. I keep on hearing what is safe for adults and older children, but I need more info about what is 'safe' for fetuses, infants, and toddlers.
Glad to know...
That others out there are concerned ABH...obviously not happy that we're having to worry about this though.
In any event, I just emailed two authors of that Swedish study at Columbia University...my email is ports98 at yahoo dot com if you're interested I can forward any information that I hear back from them. The lack of reliable data on the low level exposure is pretty troubling--hopefully there's more info out there and it's just a matter of finding it.
In the mean time we're looking at filtering solutions for the house...probably a prudent measure anyways given how polluted the world is these days!
Seems to me that avoiding
Seems to me that avoiding short term exposure by filtering your water (those activated carbon filters run in the tens of dollars) and potential long term exposure by avoiding leafy vegetables and milk products (IF those are determined to be contaminated at levels more than a tenth of what is considered safe) can't harm. If preventive measures are easily taken, why not take them?
One other interesting comment from that study
"From a public health perspective, because sheltering indoors is highly effective in reducing exposure to radiative fallout [Finck, 1991], our findings suggest that pregnant women in areas with rainfall through the radioactive cloud should remain indoors following nuclear accidents or attacks."
Problem with that is that
Problem with that is that nobody knows the concentration of rain water in our tap (shower) water. Given that this information is being concealed by the government I guess we can only hope that it's low, and that Japan will find a way to stop leakage very soon...
carbon useless for chloramine and fluoride
Carbon filters do not remove chloramine or fluoride, which are both toxic chemicals that are added to our local tap water.
For info about chloramine, see www.chloramine.org
For info about fluoride, see www.fluoridealert.org