we're continuing our reporting on the importance of lead screening during pregnancy not just when a child is born the practice isn't required in New Jersey or nationally but a ruter program supported by funding from the CDC is not only detecting unsafe levels of heavy metals in pregnant moms it's protecting babies from their dangerous and even deadly effects senior corespondent Joanna Gagis [Music] reports I felt really worried when was told that the baby would had lead in his blood and I also had lead I was really worried Maria Tecun Morales had no idea she'd been exposed to lead when she was pregnant with her son Jaime in 2022 she found out when she went to University Hospital for prenatal care late into her third trimester and was included in a lead screening program funded by the CDC run by Rutgers Health as part of that entry she did have her blood drawn and her lead level at that time was 31 and then less than two weeks later when she delivered the lead level was 74 anyone with a Lev level of greater than 3.5 microgram per decil uh should be considered as having elevated lead lead's been linked with a number of pregnancy related illnesses that can cause complications even death including preclampsia thrombosis and high blood pressure in infants it can cause low birth weight and interfere with brain development so at greater than 20 times the cdc's threshold Maria's case was deemed a medical crisis and she and baby haime had to undergo chelation treatment what that does is it draws the metal it's not only that it can be Mercury other metals out of the bloodstream and it binds the medication and then is excreted by the body my son received treatment for 3 weeks and I received treatment for one week and I believe with the treat it went down to 5% the screening program that caught Maria and Jamie's lead exposure is called the heavy metal screening for pregnant women and children it operates between three entities University Hospital where the pregnant patients are seen Rutgers Health where Dr Dr. Onajovwe Fofa is in charge of the screening and New Jersey's Poison Control Center where Dr. Diane Calello offers guidance on treatment what is important that our program has shown this standard of care is screening early especially at intake University Hospital sees about 1,400 infant births a year in the five years since they began this testing program about 14% of those births are babies with elevated lead levels I never discovered it I don't know where it came from and while they never found the source of lead Maria's exposure put her at greater risk of passing lead on during her second pregnancy with her baby girl Alma that's because research shows that in certain cases of lead exposure especially when a person is young lead can settle into the bones and then be remobilized during pregnancy passing from the mother to fetus there are situations where the bone is undergoing turnover or change which may release some of that lead from the bone back into the bloodstream and that's where we detect it those situations include pregnancy they can also include breastfeeding when lead is mobilized from the bone we see the lead level rise not in a large magnitude on its own because lead remobilization doesn't cause large spikes the team determined that Maria's lead exposure was acute and both she and Alma have tested below the 3 and a half percent threshold as for Jaime who's now two he is doing well he is doing really well Dr. Fofa is preparing to share his research with the American Academy of Pediatrics to ask that the first lead screenings move from the current 9month Benchmark to screen at Birth waiting till 9 months there's a missed opportunity there why uh because brain development the first 9 months is very critical and a bill is moving through the legislature now that would screen pregnant moms in the first and third trimesters looking for acute lead exposure and lead remobilization in Newark I'm Joanna Gagis NJ Spotlight News [Music]