The five-year-old children of city mothers who regularly breathed in car- and truck-polluted air when they were pregnant scored significantly lower on IQ tests than kids with less exposure, a study released Monday found.
The findings suggest that pre-natal exposure to air pollution could have the same harmful effects on brain development as lead exposure, and helps explain why inner city kids often do worse academically than wealthier youngsters, said Patrick Breysse, an environmental health specialist at Johns Hopkins' school of public health.
The study appeared in the August edition of Pediatrics.
Scientists said more study is needed to rule out the possibility that exposure to pollution after they were born contributed to the children's low scores.
Read more: Smog lowers kids' IQs, even before they're born, shows New York Study