Pollution Damages Infants Brain - Unicef says

Over sixteen million babies below age one are breathing toxic air which endangers their brain development at risk, UN children's agency warns.

Babies in the Southern Asia were worst affected, with over 12 million, living in areas with pollution six times higher than safe levels.

Furthermore over three million were at risk in Eastern Asia and the Pacific. The Unicef says that breathing a particular air pollution could damage brain tissue and undermine cognitive development.

Its reporter said there was a link to "verbal and non-verbal IQ and memory, it reduces test scores, grade point averages among schoolchildren, as well as other neurological behavioural problems".
The effects lasted a lifetime, it said.

"As more and more of the world urbanises, and without adequate protection and pollution reduction measures, more children will be at risk in the years to come," Unicef said.

A month ago hazardous smog began blanketing the New Delhi in India, which prompt the Indian capital's chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to say the city had become a "gas chamber".

Most schools in the city are shut but there was criticism when they re-opened, with parents accusing the authorities of disregarding their children's health.

Indian and Sri Lankan cricketers playing in Delhi vomited on the pitch during high levels of pollution.

In northern China, air pollution is estimated to cut life expectancy by about three years and the government has imposed tougher emissions rules on companies, although state media have reported that these are routinely flouted.

Satellite imagery used to compile the data also revealed that the issue was growing in African cities, Unicef said.

Meanwhile a separate study by scientists at hospitals in London found that the British city's polluted air was leading to lower birth weights, linked to higher infant mortality and disease at a later stage.