A chemical present in many plastic bottles, can linings, and cash-register receipts may be causing behavioral problems in young girls. Harvard School of Public Health researchers tested more than 200 pregnant mothers in Ohio and found that those with high levels of bisphenol A, or BPA, were more likely than their peers to give birth to girls who became aggressive, hyperactive, anxious, and depressed by age 3. The children’s own BPA levels, though, didn’t seem to affect their behavior. “It’s possible that the brain is more vulnerable to the effects of BPA” in the womb than later, study author Joe Braun tells Time.com. Previous studies have shown that BPA can change how the female hormone estrogen affects developing fetuses, which may explain why the chemical impacts girls more than boys. Experts suggest that pregnant women limit their contact with BPA by not drinking from plastic bottles or eating food from cans whose plastic linings contain the chemical. But the FDA considers low levels of BPA safe, and the chemical is in so many common products that nearly all Americans have traces of it in their bodies. A
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