Pregnancy tips Stay Away From Areas Sprayed With Pesticides If Pregnant

Yikes! Be careful if you live in an agricultural area. Sadly, the pregnant women mentioned in this article were exposed to unnatural levels of pesicides resulting in birth defects in their babies. Although most of us are not exposed to this high level of pesticides, it goes to show you that these are dangerous chemicals. Read more:

www.smfws.com

From the article:

Two field workers who gave birth to deformed babies were illegally exposed to pesticides more than 20 times each while they picked tomatoes in Eastern North Carolina, N.C. Department of Agriculture data show.

A third worker, who spent most of her pregnancy working in Florida, was exposed four times during the less than six weeks she worked in North Carolina, the data show.

All worked for Ag-Mart, a Florida-based tomato grower, and they were illegally exposed to a host of chemicals as often as three times a week, the documents show. Three of the 15 chemicals are linked to birth defects in lab animals.

Francisca Herrera, a former migrant worker who picked tomatoes for Ag-Mart in Florida and North Carolina, holds baby Carlos at 5 months. State data say she was exposed to pesticides during pregnancy. - PALM BEACH [FLA.] POST PHOTOS BY TAYLOR JONES
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One baby had no arms or legs. Another had a deformed jaw. The third had no nose and no visible sex organs and died soon after birth.

The women's exposures were illegal because they worked fields too soon after pesticides were sprayed, agriculture data show. To protect workers from harmful effects, many pesticides require that workers be out of the fields for anywhere from a few hours to two days after spraying.