In a study of 3,170 eight-year-old children at schools in the city, scientists found the pollution prevented young lungs from growing and working properly, the report said.
"Strikingly, the effect of pollutant exposure … among the children in (the) study was slighter greater than the effect of exposure to maternal smoking among children in the United States," researchers at Mexico’s National Public Health Institute wrote in the August issue of American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Mexico City in recent years has tried to cut its smog levels by closing factories, bringing old cars off the roads, modernising aging buses and promoting bicycle use, the report said.
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