A city-based gynaecologist has said that pregnant women who are exposed to high-intensity sound fireworks can sustain irreversible side-effects.

Dr Vineeta Munjal, consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician, Guru Teg Bahadur Charitable Hospital, said she came across a number of women who were exposed to ‘blast trauma’ during the festive season. The women, mostly in the last trimester of pregnancy, had to be admitted after it was detected that the foetuses exhibited excessive movements.

The women were advised strict bed rest and put on medication, she said. “Women also came with pre-term labour pains due to the exposure to high-intensity sounds.”

Restlessness, irritability, hypertension and hysteria were other features noted in pregnant women exposed to noise and chemical trauma of explosives. Crackers exploded in narrow alleys and closed spaces, especially by children, were the culprits in most cases, she said.

Dr Munjal said children born to women with prolonged exposure to a particular low-sound level do not suffer from any adverse effects. However, if pregnant women were subjected to very noisy situations after fifth trimester, when the ears of the unborn child have developed and the baby can detect sound, newborns begin crying for they cannot tolerate the condition.

Dr Munjal elaborated, “The baby in the womb is surrounded by a protective fluid and therefore is not susceptible to direct injury. The injury, in fact, occurs to the bed of tissues where the baby is attached with the mother’s body. This is the site through which nutrients and oxygen is supplied to the baby for its proper growth. Placenta, as this area is called, has a big maze of blood vessels.”

In her detailed analysis, Dr Munjal emphasised that sound waves passing through the mother’s body into the body of an unborn child were reflected at this mother-baby functional area — placenta — with a consequent separation and onset of early labour pains and risk of pre-term delivery.

Moreover, due to injury to the blood vessels at this region, there may be intermingling of the blood of the child with that of the mother and in RH negative mothers, problems like jaundice and even death of the baby in the womb can occur.