'Fracking' Leads To Premature Birth And High-Risk Pregnancies, Study

Those pregnant women who happen to be residing near hydraulic fracturing wells would have premature babies or high-risk pregnancies, says a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Active fracking sites tend to lead to births by pregnant women with an increased likelihood of 40 percent. The births could take place in just 37 weeks of gestation, called "preterm" births. A 30 percent increase in high-risk pregnancies was also seen.

The process of hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking', is a process in which workers drill the soil and pump resources consisting of chemicals, as well as water and sand impregnating underground shale rock, so that they can remove embedded oil or natural gas.

However, fracking leads to babies in danger of "breathing problems, cerebral palsy, hearing and vision impairments, developmental delay and long-term neurological disabilities", according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Preterm-related causes of death together accounted for 35% of all infant deaths in 2010, more than any other single cause," the CDC said. It explained that such births have pulled down the US health care system and pushed up its costs to more than $26 billion in 2005.

While The Johns Hopkins team could not point out the reasons for the fracking risk, lead researcher Brian Schwartz rued that it posed a huge environmental problem.

"Now that we know this is happening we'd like to figure out why," said Schwartz, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Is it air quality? Is it the stress? They're the two leading candidates in our minds at this point."

For a decade, fracking has boomed in states like Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, North Dakota and Arkansas.

"More than 8,000 unconventional gas wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania alone," Schwartz said, reported Think Progress. "We're allowing this while knowing almost nothing about what it can do to health. Our research adds evidence to the very few studies that have been done in showing adverse health outcomes associated with the fracking industry."

Examining medical records of 9,384 women who had babies in northern and central Pennsylvania, the team compared the data with data on natural gas wells in order to identify how close they were to fracking wells.

"The first few studies have all shown health impacts," Schwartz says. "Policymakers need to consider findings like these in thinking about how they allow this industry to go forward."