Microplastic and Nanoplastic Exposure Impact to Children Health

Abstract

The use of plastics is accelerating at an alarming speed. Due to detrition larger pieces of plastic are broken into micro- and nano-sized plastic particles. These particles infiltrate the environment and through different types of exposures come into contact with humans. When more plastic is left in the environment the more possible sources there are for micro- and nanoplastics. Vulnerable groups such as children, pregnant woman, patients with chronic diseases and the elderly are especially susceptible to environmental hazards, which micro- and nanoplastics are due to their proven toxic nature. For this literature review, the aim was to observe what is already known about micro-and nanoplastics and their possible health effects on the vulnerable parts of childhood and childhood and long-term effects on children. This literature review was conducted using PubMed and Clinical Key, articles that were included were in English language and only articles that had full texts or abstracts available were included and articles needed to have been published by a recognized journal. The search was done using specific search words such as microplastic and nanoplastic which were combined with pregnancy, children, development, long-term effects, exposure, breast milk, neurotoxin, etc. The hypothesis for this literature review was that microplastics harm children's health, nanoplastics hurt children's health, and children living in an area with a higher concentration of microplastic and nanoplastics could be risky for the children. During this literature review there was concluded that the two first hypotheses to be true. All articles that evaluated the health risk concluded that microplastics and nanoplastics could have negative impacts on children's health and some concluded that exposure could even lead to long-term effects. That evidently would also mean that living in an area with higher pollution level and intake doses of micro and nanoplastics would also be with high health risk for children.