"Nearly 300 million pounds of Roundup are applied across US farms each year, with the heaviest use in the Midwest, Parvez and his colleagues write. In evaluations spanning four decades, the overwhelming conclusion of experts worldwide, including the EPA, has been that glyphosate can be used safely according to label instructions. In addition, he recommended waiting to buy a new car, couch or other home item that could contain chemicals. More than 94 per cent of the women were white, and they came from nine counties that represented a mix of rural, suburban and urban locales, as well as public and well water lines, the authors note. Those who lived in rural areas had higher levels than suburban residents."Glyphosate is often used on major crops on a day-to-day basis . . Now we want to learn more about dietary intake and environmental factors such as contaminated air. The women also provided two urine samples and two drinking water samples from their homes. All but two births in this study group were full-term, although researchers found that on average, women with more glyphosate in their urine delivered earlier than women with less or none. .

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, the most heavily used herbicide in the United States and worldwide, the study team writes in the journal Environmental Health. "It makes sense to us since there are many different food products imported from Southeast Asia and South America but we don’t know what they contain," Parvez said."In addition to its small size, the study is limited by its lack of geographic and racial diversity.In 2015 and 2016, the researchers recruited 71 pregnant women in central Indiana and surveyed them about their food and beverage consumption, lifestyle, stress and where they lived.Researchers tested the water and urine for glyphosate and divided women into four groups based on their urine concentration of the chemical."."Still, Parvez said, "It was mind-boggling that glyphosate was so prevalent in urine samples . ."Scott Partridge, vice president of global strategy for Monsanto, said, "When it comes to safety assessments, no other pesticide has been more extensively tested than glyphosate. "Be vigilant and careful, especially those living in areas where corn and soybeans are grown. "We don’t want to cause unnecessary panic, but we do want to understand how it affects pregnancy and human health. "It indicates a need to think about these food products, such as coffee beans and other drinks that we import. but it was a pleasant surprise that none of the drinking water came out positive. After women gave birth, researchers used medical records to determine their pregnancy length. but we hardly know anything about how humans are exposed," said lead author Shahid Parvez, a researcher at the Indiana University Fairbanks School of Public Health in Indianapolis.Women who drank more than 24 ounces of caffeinated beverages per day also had higher glyphosate concentrations than others.Overall, 93 per cent of the women had detectable glyphosate in their urine while pregnant.Pregnancy typically lasts 39-40 weeks; births after 37 weeks are considered full-term.Glyphosate was not associated with other fetal growth indicators such as birth weight or head circumference. "More research needs to be done, but the precautions are common sense," he said. "We’ve received an overwhelming response because there’s a lot of concern about this chemical," Parvez told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.

In a statement to Reuters Health, Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, said, "Even at the highest reported levels of glyphosate exposure, the findings by Parvez et al do not indicate any adverse health outcomes, the gestation ranges reported by Parvez et al are well within the normal range of gestation lengths and the trace amounts of glyphosate reported in the urine samples are consistent with exposures that are well below the strict limits the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established to protect human health.C., which offers resources on its website for protecting wholesale centrifugal pump Manufacturers children from chemical exposures.Benbrook also works with the Children’s Environment Health Network in Washington, D. "Unfortunately, in cases of prenatal exposures, results can take months to years after a child is born to be observable," said Charles Benbrook, a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Baltimore who wasn’t involved in the study.More than 90 per cent of pregnant women in a small Indiana study had glyphosate in their urine, and higher concentrations were associated with earlier deliveries. However, none of the drinking water samples had detectable glyphosate.In general, Benbrook advised pregnant women to avoid spraying herbicides on the lawn or treating the house for insects when they could be exposed during their first trimester."The research team was also surprised by the link between caffeine intake and high glyphosate levels in urine