Washington, Feb 4 (IANS) A pregnant or lactating woman's exposure to plastic used in water bottles, sunglasses, eyeglass lenses, DVDs, and CDs may increase the risk of asthma in her children.

Scientists have been warning of the negative effects of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in the plastic for some everyday products.

Experiments on mice by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB-G) researchers have produced evidence that a mother's exposure to BPA may also increase the odds that her children will develop asthma.

Using a well-established mouse model for asthma, the investigators found that the offspring of female mice exposed to BPA showed significant signs of the disorder, unlike those of mice shielded from BPA.

Previous studies have linked BPA exposure to reproductive disorders, obesity, abnormal brain development as well as breast and prostate cancers.

'We gave BPA in drinking water starting a week before pregnancy, at levels calculated to produce a body concentration that was the same as that in a human mother, and continued on through the pregnancy and lactation periods,' said UTMB-G associate professor Terumi Midoro-Horiuti, who led the study.

Four days after birth, researchers sensitised the baby mice with an allergy-provoking ovalbumin injection, followed by a series of daily respiratory doses of ovalbumin, the main protein in egg white.

Investigators then measured levels of antibodies against ovalbumin and quantities of inflammatory white blood cells known as eosinophils in the lungs of the mouse pups. They also used two different methods to measure lung function.

'All four of our indicators of asthma response showed up in the BPA group, much more so than in the pups of the non-exposed mice,' said UTMB-G professor Randall Goldblum, study co-author, according to its release.

The study appeared in the February issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.