Fracking Associated with Premature Birth

“Expectant mothers who live near active natural gas wells operated by the fracking industry in Pennsylvania are at an increased risk of giving birth prematurely and for having high-risk pregnancies, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests. …

For his study, Schwartz and his colleagues analyzed data from Geisinger Health System, which covers 40 counties in north and central Pennsylvania. They studied the records of 9,384 mothers who gave birth to 10,946 babies between January 2009 and January 2013. They compared that data with information about wells drilled for fracking and looked at how close they were to the homes of the pregnant mothers as well as what stage of drilling the wells were in, how deep the wells were dug and how much gas was being produced at the wells during the mothers’ pregnancies. Using this information, they developed an index of how active each of the wells were and how close they were to the women.

The researchers found that living in the most active quartile of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation (considered pre-term) and a 30 percent increase in the chance that an obstetrician had labeled their pregnancy “high-risk,” a designation that can include factors such as elevated blood pressure or excessive weight gain during pregnancy. When looking at all of the pregnancies in the study, 11 percent of babies were born preterm, with the majority (79 percent) born between 32 and 36 weeks. ...

While the study can’t pinpoint why the pregnant women had worse outcomes near the most active wells, Schwartz says that every step of the drilling process has an environmental impact. ... “Now that we know this is happening we’d like to figure out why,” Schwartz says. “Is it air quality? Is it the stress? They’re the two leading candidates in our minds at this point.”

summary:

http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2015/study-fracking-industr...

full paper:

http://www.eenews.net/assets/2015/10/09/document_ew_01.pdf

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Permalink Reply by Bob Shaw on October 21, 2015 at 4:23am
0ym9x5ag7ury2Permalink Reply by 0ym9x5ag7ury2 on October 21, 2015 at 1:54pm

All that fracking noise keeps people awake at night, which leads to an increase in, well, general intimacy.

An increase in general intimacy leads to an increase in births.

An increase in births, leads to an increase in premature births.

I recommend the use of a good set of ear plugs, which will lead to more people sleeping soundly through the night.

More people sleeping soundly through the night leads to a decrease in births.

A decrease in births leads to a decrease in premature births.

Now the heart attacks are a different story. That's due to being cheated out of royalties after the fracking stops.

Permalink Reply by Deb Reynolds on October 23, 2015 at 5:33am

more sound reasoning than many studies!

Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on October 21, 2015 at 8:25am

Some readers seem to be having some difficulty reasoning about risks. The results of this Johns Hopkins study were not merely that premature birth occurred near drilling, it was "The researchers found that living in the most active quartile of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation (considered pre-term)".

They made a finding about relative risk, not absolute risk. The question they asked was not simply "are some births premature near gas wells?" but rather "is a birth more likely to be premature if you live close to a gas well than if you don't?"

Bob Shaw's list is irrelevant to the latter question.

The study authors wrote "We included clinical, demographic, and environmental covariates to control for potential confounding based on a priori hypotheses and previous studies of birth outcome risk factors including neonate sex, gestational age (for birth weight), season and year of birth, maternal age, race/ethnicity, Geisinger primary care provider status, smoking status during pregnancy, prepregnancy body mass index (BMI), parity, antibiotic orders during pregnancy, and receipt of Medical Assistance, a surrogate for low family socioeconomic status."

Permalink Reply by Barry D on October 21, 2015 at 1:22pm

Raul,

Really, Condescension ?

We get it, we know what these frauds are asking and what they are stating.

The point you miss is that they are frauds and their study is a sham (my opinions)

For example; most studies create a baseline. As Jack points out there is a mountain of data the researchers could have drawn upon. Yet not only did they ignore this information, they created no baseline ( at least not one I could discern.)

Further, they also ignored many of the possible "coauthors" that could have had an impact on premature births.

Most of all the researchers/authors ignored the medical histories of the mothers and local population. All data that was readily available to them.

In other words, theses folks started with a predetermined conclusion and picked and chose data that fit their misguided scenario; and disregarded information that contradicted their false premises.

Yes, yes I know they say they included this and that information. But, as I said, this is cherry picked information , virtually worthless.

Sad, very sad

Permalink Reply by Jack Young on October 21, 2015 at 12:23pm

It's curious that nobody has done a study like this related to the numerous areas where fracking was common before the recent shale boom in Pennsylvania. By the time I joined Quaker State's Bradford office in 1981 every well we drilled was fracked, and those wells were shallow so there was less separation between the producing formations and groundwater. If this was science the researchers would go for the older data since it's more complete and you could follow the mothers and children forward longitudinally. But if the goal is to attack the industry that exists today then you'd ignore that.

I can't see any way that fracking would impact pregnant women a mile away and not leave a trace of any connection. If you can't even speculate on a possible mechanism for cause and effect you probably don't have anything worth publishing. Unless, of course, the science isn't important to you. Which it wasn't for the researchers, and never appears to be for Paul himself. The man who just posts one side of every issue and smiles like a simpleton.

Permalink Reply by PA Joe on October 22, 2015 at 12:31am

I once attended a town hall meeting by a "fracking company" where they were asking people to let them lease. Once man stood up to tell the crowd not to lease because his grandson had worked on a frac crew and "that frac water got on him and turned him queer". I haven't read the study but I would hope they looked at income levels in the local population. These wells are drilled in rural areas where people are more likely to be economically disadvantaged, have limited access to health care, smoke, be obese, etc. I know I live in this type of area. 

Permalink Reply by Barry D on October 22, 2015 at 1:40am

Paul,

Other than a lack of FACTS, do you know what else is lacking? A connection between the oil and gas acivity and the premature births.

I assume the authors of the study and you believe that the premature births were caused by chemicals used or by air pollutants. Consider the following quote from the authors;

“We were not able to take environmental samples, which may have led to exposure misclassification and prevented us from determining if a specific pollutant was responsible for our associations.”

The researchers used computer models instead of empirical data. As anyone knows, the computer modeling is only as good as the information used. So the researchers could have easily manipulated the results by providing incomplete or selected data.

Without environmental data there is no possible way to connect premature births to oil and gas activity. At best it's a guess, so are suggesting that we get all hot and bothered over a guess?

Permalink Reply by Deb Reynolds on October 23, 2015 at 5:36am

good point!

Permalink Reply by Dan on October 22, 2015 at 4:13am
Paul could be right. It appears the typical country road gas station store has increased their selection of junk food snacks to cater to the O&G workers driving by. This has caused the local population to eat more junk in turn causing premature birth.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/junk-food-ahead-pregnancy-may-h...
Permalink Reply by Barry D on October 22, 2015 at 4:56am

Dan,

In a perverse way, that conclusion actually makes more sense, than the bogus claims of the study which Paul posted.

Permalink Reply by Paul Heckbert on January 27, 2016 at 9:35am

Nice use of technology: satellite and aerial photography was used to locate environmental degradation, including premature birth: http://www.greenbiz.com/article/eyes-sky-green-groups-harness-data-...

Other good work by this SkyTruth group: "soon after the [gas industry web site FracFocus] launch in 2011, users found that information posted on it was entered in the wrong field, misspelled chemical trade names or omitted key facts deemed proprietary. The site thwarted researchers by requiring postings in a format that computers couldn’t read. 

Although 23 states require fracking companies to use FracFocus to disclose their chemical use, a 2013 Harvard Law School report concluded that FracFocus "fails as a regulatory compliance tool." SkyTruth’s lead programmer, Paul Woods, devised a way around some of FracFocus’ barriers by writing software that "scraped" all the chemical data from the tens of thousands of reports posted on the site. Then he posted it in a database on SkyTruth’s website.

In addition, under pressure from SkyTruth, other environmental groups and an Energy Department advisory board, FracFocus agreed to make its data available in machine-readable form beginning in May. These developments have yielded more information for researchers, such as Schwartz, who are investigating fracking’s health impact."

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