New Car Smell and pregnancy

My daughter is 4 months pregnant and she just bought a new Ford Escape. She saw some web sites stating "new car smell" is bad for the baby. I never heard of this. Any truth to this?

My first thought was: "no, sitting in a new car will not get you pregnant." At least, not without some help.

"New car smell" is the noxious outgassing of various industrial materials and is most probably a considerable hazard. Not that you're ever going to hear that from any of the manufacturers or the governments that profit from them.

Edit: http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160315-is-new-car-smell-bad-for-your-health

I imagine that there's something to it. Consider: you have lots of new plastics constantly outgassing the magic of inorganic chemistry 24/7. Driving with windows cracked should take care of it. The plastics don't outgas very quickly.

A lot of that smell may be formaldehyde out-gassing from the fabrics and carpet. It's probably not strong enough to cause issues. If she is worried about it, tell her to open the window for the first mile or so and blow the stink out of the car.

Hadn't really thought about that being an issue, however it makes sense. Based on my experience when my wife was preggers, I would think the odor would be more of a concern due to the heightened sensitivity to smells.

Mustang50 wrote: My daughter is 4 months pregnant and she just bought a new Ford Escape. She saw some web sites stating "new car smell" is bad for the baby. I never heard of this. Any truth to this?

Any truth? Maybe a microscopic bit of truth roughly in proportion to the risk posed by new car smell but nothing to worry about. If there were any serious risk I think it might've been discovered over the last 50 years or so, during most of which new cars were more commonly in use than they are today.

Buy Miata. Put top down. No more problem. Proving once again that there is no question to which Miata is not the answer.

During my time in the auto industry the boiling/out gassing/evaporating chemicals in cars was a big thing. There was potential legislation for testing of in car toxin levels in Europe and California. Due to the EPA (hey Thanks EPA GUYS!) getting interested the auto companies basically turned the screws on most suppliers to reduce their output of chemical gasses. The counter side is that consumer testing showed that there is an expectation of the "new car smell" otherwise consumers seemed to have negative reactions to the cars if they were scentless.

That being said I found that some car programs took the route of reducing while others took the route of eliminating all smells so that they can introduce the smell that improves sales satisfaction.

I guess the output of gasses should be avoided by your daughter. Drive with the windows down, NEVER use Recirc, someone else should go start the car to air it out before she gets in.

None of those simple steps would be out of line to save the life of someone in your family right? Wouldn't you fight off 3 tortured pitbulls to save your grandchild? Keep the air flowing inside the car and she can enjoy her new ride.