Scientists Issue Serious Warning About Drinking Tap Water When Pregnant: ‘Our Results Showed...’

Urinary fluoride is one of the best and most reliable measures of total fluoride intake, which reason why researchers used this factor to conduct the study. Maternal urine is also the most widely employed measure of individual fluoride exposure in epidemiological studies, including those assessing neurodevelopment, researchers mentioned in the study. They discovered a 0.68 mg/L increase in specific gravity–adjusted maternal urinary fluoride during pregnancy, which indicated that prenatal exposure to fluoride disrupted fetal health.

"Our results showed that higher fluoride levels in mothers' urine were associated with significantly increased neurodevelopmental problems in their three-year-old children, especially for internalizing problems like depression and anxiety," Tracy Bastain, an associate professor of clinical population and public health science and study author, told Newsweek. "These results are very concerning from a public health perspective, given that the majority of U.S. communities have fluoridated water."

Fluoride contamination mainly depends on the geology of the area. When volcanoes explode, they spew fluoride along with magma, per Intechopen. When the lava cools down, these gases fall and dissolve in the groundwater springs that feed the drinking water supplies of the country. Experts at News Medical explain that excessive exposure to fluoride in drinking water can trigger severe neurological damage and imbalance in the baby’s developing brain by disrupting certain neurotransmitters, including the shrinking levels of norepinephrine. These changes can lead to disordered intellectual growth in the child.