Delhi’s air pollution is no longer just an environmental concern. According to Dr Harsh Vardhan Puri, chest surgeon at Medanta Hospital, it has become a full-blown public health crisis, with children bearing the heaviest burden.
Speaking to India TV on the long-term impact of polluted air, Dr Puri warns that the damage is beginning far earlier than most people realise, in childhood, and in some cases, even before birth.
“30% of Delhi’s children are already borderline asthmatic”
Dr Puri says the scale of the crisis is already visible inside hospitals. “Thirty per cent of children in Delhi are borderline asthmatic. The disease of asthma has already begun in them.”
He stresses that these are not isolated cases. “Today, in our OPDs, we are seeing this regularly,” he adds, pointing out that childhood respiratory problems have become alarmingly common rather than exceptional.
“Pollution is shrinking children’s lungs before they fully grow”
According to Dr Puri, children are especially vulnerable because their lungs are still developing. “A child’s lungs develop until the age of 10 to 12,” he explains. “If they are exposed to this level of pollution during these formative years, their lung capacity never reaches its full potential.”
The consequences, he says, are lifelong. “We are raising a generation of respiratory cripples,” Dr Puri warns, referring to children who grow up with reduced lung capacity, lower stamina and a significantly higher risk of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at an early age.
Even when symptoms are mild or absent, the damage is already underway. “The foundation of chronic diseases is being laid,” he says, “even if the signs don’t show immediately.”
Even before birth, babies are inhaling pollution — here’s how
Dr Puri emphasises that the impact of pollution begins even earlier than childhood. “This is not my problem or your problem,” he says. “This is the problem of a child who hasn’t even taken their first breath yet.”
Explaining how pollution reaches unborn babies, he notes that ultra-fine particles such as PM1 can pass through the lungs into the bloodstream. “Through this same placenta, these PM1 particles are reaching that child,” he says.
Citing medical studies, Dr Puri adds, “When umbilical cord samples were tested, 276 different kinds of pollutants were found.” According to him, these pollutants enter the lungs, brain and cells of the unborn child long before birth.
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