Certain women who are exposed to contaminated tap water during pregnancy may face an increased risk of delivering smaller-than-average babies according to a new report published in this month's American Journal of Epidemiology. University of New England researchers examined 12,000 infants born between 1968 and 1985 at the Marine Corp's Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. It is estimated that half of the infants studied were exposed to perchloroethylene (PCE or "Perc") through a well contaminated by a dry cleaning facility.

Researchers found that mothers who had experienced two or more miscarriages were more than twice as likely to give birth to undersized infants if the women were also exposed to the contaminated water. In addition, women over the age of 35 who were exposed to the perchloroethylene-tainted water were twice as likely to bear small for gestational age (SGA) babies.

Perchloroethylene levels in the Marines' drinking water were estimated at 80 to 210 parts per billion, or 16 to 40 times higher than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard. Sources of PCE exposure are usually occupational. Chemical manufacturers and those who work in the dry cleaning and metal degreasing industries are at a particularly high risk of exposure.