Pregnant women have been given health care advice warning of the dangers of exposure to hairspray for their unborn baby.
The health care advice comes from Imperial College London and claims that hairspray may be associated with a heightened risk of hypospadias.
Hypospadias affects male babies and is the condition in which the urinary opening appears on the underneath of the penis.
While the educational institution notes that there is little understanding of why this occurs, exposure to hairspray has now been identified as a risk factor.
Researchers from the college studied the impact of hairspray during the first trimester of pregnancy.
They found that mothers exposed to the substance are two to three more times as likely to have offspring with hypospadias as those who are not exposed in significant quantities.
Earlier in the year, Japanese scientists discovered that hairspray may be infected by bacteria of the family Microbacterium hatanonis.
The investigating team from the Japan Collection of Microorganisms told the Society for General Microbiology that such infections are rare among beauty products.
As other bacteria from the Microbacterium genus have been linked with infections in humans, they added that more must be done to identify any risk that infected hairspray might pose to individuals.
