Substance in soap may increase miscarriage risk

Long term exposure to certain substances commonly used in personal-care products, such as soap and shampoo, food packaging, and other everyday products could be linked to pregnancy loss, warns a new study.

In this study involving more than 300 women, researchers from Peking University in Beijing, China, have found that certain phthalates could be associated with miscarriage, mostly between five and thirteen weeks of pregnancy.

Researchers Jianying Hu and colleagues tested urine samples from 132 women who had miscarriages and 172 healthy pregnant women in China. They found pregnancy loss was associated with exposure to higher levels of certain phthalates.

Previous research on phthalates had shown that long-term exposure to low levels of the some of these compounds harms lab animals' health and can increase their risk for pregnancy loss. (The study appeared in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.)