A study on birth defects conducted in South Texas about a decade ago is expanding to the rest of the country.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences awarded a $1.4 million grant to Jean Brender, associate professor with the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, to study how some medications and nitrates and nitrites in food and water are linked to birth defects.

Nitrates and nitrites are nitrogen- and oxygen-based chemical compounds commonly found in fertilizers. They have also been linked to birth defects, Brender said.

The center will collaborate with several universities and the Texas Department of State Health Services to study birth defects cases in 10 states including Texas.

Brender said she began looking into the issue in the 1990s when she learned that many babies born along the Texas-Mexico border had birth defects, including neural tube defects, oral clefts and encephalitis. Hidalgo County was included in the original study.

She and other researchers tested water the mothers drank, public water supplies, food the women ate and medications they took, to test nitrate and nitrite levels.

“All of us are exposed to nitrates — (which are found in) vegetables — and nitrites — (which are found in) meats,” Brender said.

But the researchers learned that pregnant women who took medications, primarily antibiotics and cold medicine, with food and water were more likely to have babies with neural tube defects, she said.

Brender said the first study looked at a few hundred women who had babies born with defects.

With the new study, researchers plan to study 5,000 to 7,000 women, including 800 to 1,000 who have children with neural tube defects, she said.

“We’re talking about thousands of women, as opposed to hundreds,” Brender said. “We can’t just depend on the results of one study.”

Dr. Brian Smith, director of the Texas Department of State Health Services’ Region 11, which includes the Rio Grande Valley, said the original study increased awareness about birth defects and led to the state creating a birth defects registry.

“Region 11 has been the leaders in the state. We have the best registry,” he said.

Smith said the department has been working with the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio on birth defects studies.

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Jennifer L. Berghom covers health, environment and science issues and general assignments at The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4462.