It seems that BPA, the chemical found in many plastics, tin cans, dental sealants, etc., has been blamed for yet another human health problem.

According to a new study presented today,

“Women with the highest levels of BPA, or bisphenol A, in their blood were significantly more likely to miscarry than women with the lowest levels of the ubiquitous chemical.”

Miscarrying is just one part of the current struggle many couples have with infertility.  I, myself, had a miscarriage when I was younger, and it is a very emotional experience.   I grieved for my lost child.   I don’t know if BPA was to blame, I did love my Nalgene bottle, but whatever the cause, it is a sad event.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine reports on the new reproductive study conducted at Stanford University:

They recruited 114 women having an early pregnancy test at four to five weeks gestation.  The enrollees gave blood to be stored. This was later tested for BPA levels in the women who had given birth and in the women who had had a first trimester miscarriage with testing for chromosomal abnormalities.  Serum BPA concentration levels were ranked in quartiles and the researchers calculated the relative risk of miscarriage for women in each quartile of serum BPA concentration.

Women who had had a miscarriage had higher average BPA levels than those who had live births and the risk of miscarriage increased with increasing levels of BPA in the maternal serum- whether the fetus was chromosomally normal or not.

What does this mean?   Bisphenol-A is a hormone disrupting chemical, and clearly hormones are involved in reproduction.

Other studies have linked BPA to the following health problems:

• heart disease
• obesity
• asthma
• infertility
• brain tumors

CBS News further reports on this new study linking BPA to miscarriages:

The chemical is banned in Canada and the European Union. In the United States,BPA was banned from baby bottles and sippy cups in July 2012, but the Food and Drug Administration has rejected an outright ban of the chemical, saying current scientific evidence “does not suggest that the very low levels of human exposure to BPA through the diet are unsafe.”…

“The association identified with miscarriages is biologically plausible, and of great concern,” Dr. Leo Trasande, an associate professor of pediatrics and environmental medicine at the NYU Langone School of Medicine, told CBSNews.com in an email. “While further study is needed, the findings add to the case for revisiting the decision by FDA not to ban BPA in food uses.”

This study’s results have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet, but you shouldn’t wait to start avoiding BPA.  It is a good idea to avoid BPA and plastic all together. I don’t trust the plastic chemicals that are replacing BPA in BPA-free products either.