Building upon earlier work that has examined the impact of air pollution on pregnancy, Kyung Sung, Dr. Sherin Devaskar and Dr. Carla Janzen, along with Dr. Beate Ritz (not pictured), will study how exposure to pollution affects the placenta.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded UCLA a $4.2 million grant to study how environmental pollution negatively affects how the placenta develops in pregnant women, ultimately contributing to poor pregnancy outcomes.
Dr. Sherin Devaskar, the Mattel Executive Endowed Chair of the department of pediatrics at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA, will lead a team of researchers that will build upon earlier work that has examined the impact of air pollution on pregnancy.
The placenta is a critical organ that shuttles blood, oxygen, and nutrients from mother to fetus and clears harmful waste like carbon dioxide. It also produces hormones to help sustain the pregnancy and regulate the immune system so that mother and fetus can coexist. Many problems of pregnancy — such as preeclampsia, preterm birth, and even stillbirth — can occur because of problems with the placenta. (suite…)