A recent study published online about why it is thought that pregnant women may need to cautiously drink tap water. Now, we are, of course, advocates of drinking tap water, so this article had us perplexed. Its basis comes from a study recently done “that associates environmental contaminants with a higher rate of birth defects at a population level.”

For this study, data was collected from just the state of New Jersey from 1997 to 2007. As is stated in the article, “Pregnant women who lived in areas with any form of water contamination were more likely to give birth to a baby with low birth weight and more likely to deliver their baby prematurely, researchers found. However, these findings do not confirm that drinking water caused birth defects; they merely show a statistical association between the two occurrences.”

It needs to be stated, and it’s even stated in the above mentioned article too, that these findings don’t mean that pregnant women shouldn’t drink tap water, it’s just that they should pay more particular attention to advisories about their water supply. Almost all public water supply systems in the United States meet the strict regulations set in place by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for safe drinking water, so we can all go about our lives knowing we can drink safe and reliable water right out of the tap!