06 Apr 2022
2 minutes reading
Source/Revelations
disclosures:
Metcalfe does not report any material financial disclosures. See the study for the relevant financial disclosures from all other authors.
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Women who lived within 6 miles of an oil or gas well that had been hydraulically ruptured during 1-year preconception or during pregnancy had a higher risk of adverse birth outcomes, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
In an interview with Healio, co-author Amy Metcalfe, PhDassistant professor in the departments of obstetrics and gynecology and community health sciences at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, said the idea for the study arose from the researchers’ mutual interest in a litany of areas.
Amy Metcalfe
“We all had individual interests in pregnancy outcomes, child development, law, geology, environmental health, economics, geography and ultimately hydraulic fracturing, and oil and gas production in Alberta,” said Metcalfe, who is also a member of the Alberta Children’s Institute for Hospital Research. .
“We took the opportunity to collaborate on an interdisciplinary project because it involved so many different research pillars,” Metcalfe said. “Ultimately, the environmental health impact on reproductive health is an area of interest for many of us. It requires such a big team with different skills to work together, which was a great opportunity for us to work together.”
The population-based retrospective cohort study included 26,193 women ages 18 to 50 who had given birth from 2013 to 2018 and lived in rural areas in the province of Alberta. The researchers considered subjects “exposed” if they lived within 10 km of an oil or gas well that had undergone hydraulic fracturing in the year before conception through pregnancy. They identified 4,871 of these oil and gas wells through the Alberta Energy Regulator.
“What we found was that women with more than 100 fracking sites within 10 km of their home have a significantly increased risk of spontaneous preterm birth and are small for gestational age,” Metcalfe said.
Of the 414 women with this exposure level, the adjusted RRs for spontaneous preterm and small for gestational age were 1.64 (95% CI, 1.04-2.60) and 1.65 (95% CI, 1.10-2, 48). Living within 10 km of a fracking site was associated with an increase in small for gestational age (aRR = 1.12; 95% CI, 1.03-1.23) and major congenital malformations (aRR, 1.31; 95% BI, 1.01-1.69).
“Certainly, there is a large body of evidence linking essentially primarily air pollution and other forms of pollution to adverse pregnancy outcomes, with a clear link between air pollution and spontaneous preterm birth,” Metcalfe said. “I don’t think we were surprised to see the number of fracking sites in Alberta, and the number that occurred relatively close to residential homes.”
Although Metcalfe warned the researchers couldn’t establish a causal relationship, she said they do believe there is a link between fracking and adverse birth outcomes.
“This is also potentially an area where legislation can help protect human health,” Metcalfe said. “Currently, Alberta law requires a fracking site to be 100m away from an individual home, but there is no legislation regarding the density of the fracking activity. Certainly, we saw the greatest risk associated with high-density surgery.”
Reference:
Cairncross ZF, et al. JAMA Pediatrician. 2022;doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.0306.
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