Pregnant women exposed to multiple pesticides face higher chances of complications than those exposed to a single pesticide, according to new research from Argentina.
Tom Perkins reports for The Guardian.
In short:
- Researchers monitored nearly 90 pregnant women in Santa Fe, Argentina, where pesticide use is common due to diverse crop farming. Over 80% had pesticides in their urine; 64% had more than one type.
- Rural women were more than twice as likely as urban women to experience pregnancy complications, with higher levels of pesticide mixtures detected in their systems.
- Triazole fungicides, widely used in agriculture and increasingly common in the U.S., were more prevalent among those who had complications like intrauterine growth restriction and gestational hypertension.
Key quote:
“For the most part we have absolutely no clue how different mixtures interact in utero, in a child or in an adult.”
— Nathan Donley, pesticides researcher, Center for Biological Diversity
Why this matters:
Pesticides are designed to kill pests, but their residues don’t always stop there. Many people, even those living far from farms, ingest small doses daily through food and water. When multiple pesticides mix in the body — especially during pregnancy — their combined effects can be harder to predict and potentially more harmful than any single chemical alone. That’s a challenge for health experts and regulators, since most testing focuses on individual substances. Rural communities face the heaviest exposure, but urban populations are not immune. Studies have begun linking pesticide mixtures to issues like birth complications and childhood cancer. Yet in many countries, including the U.S., regulation still assumes these substances are safe unless proven otherwise.
Related: Pesticide exposure during pregnancy may be harming farmworkers’ kids in California
