The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is something that is near and dear to my heart. My grandfather passed away from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on 9/13/2001 – when I was 1,500 miles away from home with a newborn baby and unable to fly because of the tragedies of 9/11.
Growing up, I had several friends diagnosed with leukemia and early one Christmas morning, I found out that my older cousin’s boyfriend (they were in high school) had finally succumbed to this tragic disease.
Fast forward to my pregnancy with my daughter, another mom that was in the same “due date club” as I found out when her daughter was just a few months old that she had leukemia. Sadly, her daughter lost her battle with leukemia on 9/13 as well (several years after my grandfather’s passing).
Not a few years after that, a friend’s child was diagnosed with leukemia. We met because we were due with our first child the same month. Although we lived thousands of miles apart, we met in person when my oldest was one year old. Today, as our children near their 8th birthday, we all still chat together on this message board. Thankfully, her son is several years post transplant and is doing great!
So today, while catching up on environmental news, the article about the mother’s exposure to chemicals during pregnancy possibly linked to an increased risk of leukemia in the child. Now I want to preface this by saying that I am in no way laying blame for any child’s leukemia on his mother. I have two children on the autism spectrum and I see report after report about things I did do, or should have done, while pregnant that may have prevented my children’s condition. Many moms consider this as blaming the mom for their autistic child and so I can understand that sentiment. So this article is merely meant to be informative.
The study looked specifically at the link between work-related exposure to pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides. The data from 35 studies of both paternal and maternal exposure to these pesticides were used as the research basis for these conclusions.
“When the findings of all the paternal studies were combined, fathers’ occupational pesticide exposure did not increase leukemia risk in children. Although several previous studies had found associations of paternal exposure and leukemia, these tended to be the lower quality studies.
However, after combining all the maternal studies, mothers’ pesticide exposure during pregnancy was associated with more than a 2-fold increase in risk of leukemia. This finding persisted regardless of the quality of the articles.
Several of the maternal studies were too small to show statistically significant increases in leukemia risk on their own. However, when the results of all the studies were combined, a statistically significant increase emerged.” Source: Environmental Health News
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