Microplastic Contamination in the Human Placenta
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: The widespread presence of plastics in our environment poses a growing concern as they may pose risks to human and environmental health. Microplastics (MPs) are small particles generated through fragmentation of larger plastic items. The presence of MPs particles has been reported in the human placenta, an organ essential for pregnancy and fetal development. The presence of MP contamination of the womb raises the possibility of adverse effects on the developing fetus with potential life-long consequences. This thesis seeks to investigate this issue through: 1) A review aimed to examine the current state of knowledge on the effects of exposure to MP on maternal and fetal health within the DOHaD framework; 2) A study conducted to confirm and further the reports of microplastics in human placentas through a study, in a Canadian setting, comparing MPs exposure to delivery methods. Methods: 1) A review was conducted of the current literature on microplastic contamination in human reproductive tissues, and the resulting reproductive consequences of exposure. 2) Placentas (n=10) were collected from singleton, uncomplicated pregnancies. Placentas were collected from vaginal (n=5) and cesarean section (n=5) deliveries within a plastics-reduced clinical setting. Placental tissue biopsies were micro-dissected under plastic-reduced conditions - from basal plate, chorionic villous and chorionic plate. Samples were chemically digested and filtered through glass microfiber filters and the retained particles were identified and characterized using Raman microspectroscopy. iii Results: 1) The review reports multiple lines of evidence that suggest that MP-exposure prior to or during pregnancy can contaminate various internal tissues (including those of the fetus) and may result in potential adverse effects on fertility, fetal development and long-term health of the exposed fetus. More importantly, the available evidence is limited and several significant gaps in knowledge were identified. 2) Microplastics composed of various polymer types were detected in placentas from both delivery types (vaginal or caesarian), with polyethylene being the most common. In addition, non-plastic foreign particles including graphite, lead oxide and black carbon were observed in a higher frequency than microplastics. Notably, both microplastic and non-microplastic particles were found in all placentas sampled with variations in the number of particles. Particles both plastic and non-plastic were observed in placenta regions of maternal and fetal circulation suggesting that these can pass through the placenta into fetal tissues. Conclusion: This thesis provides evidence that the human placenta can serve as a reservoir for the accumulation of a variety of foreign particles during pregnancy. The potential human health impacts of such particles in general or on fetal development, in particular, are unknown but is a critical question for future work to understand the health consequences of plastic pollution.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".