The pall of smoke and dust that hung over Manhattan after the September 11 terrorist attack on New York appears to have caused pregnant women in the vicinity to bear small babies, according to a new study by US researchers.
Pregnant women who were in the area on the day of the attack or up to three weeks later were twice as likely as women not exposed to the murky cloud to have a child with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). Babies born with this condition are small for the length of their gestation.
The researchers believe this may be a legacy of the “toxic atmospheric plume” unleashed by the collapse of the World Trade Center’s twin towers after airliners were flown into them in September 2001.
