Page 42 - Spring2018
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Mercury:
Poisoning Our Children
By Sylvia P. Onusic, PhD, CNS, LDN
teratogen is a substance that causes malforma-
tion of a fetus, including birth defects and death.
ATeratogens also cause harm to the prenatal brain,
affecting future intellectual, behavioral and emotional
development and functioning. Exposures to teratogenic
substances result in a wide variety of defects that range
from infertility, prenatal onset growth restriction, struc-
tural defects and functional central nervous system (CNS)
abnormalities to miscarriage or fetal death. 1
Exposures in pregnancy can affect the fetus as early as ten to fourteen
days after conception. During development, certain organs form at specific
times but some structures are sensitive to teratogens throughout the entire
pregnancy. Extremely serious defects of the brain and spine, called col-
lectively neural tube defects (NTDs), occur in the first three to five weeks.
NTDs include anencephaly (partial skull), spina bifida (opening in the spinal
column) and other conditions affecting the brain, spine or neck. 2
40 Wise Traditions SPRING 2018
