Heavy metals contaminating placental tissues of pregnant women in mining areas – Prof Ossei

Forensic and histopathologist, Professor Dr Paul Poku Sampene Ossei, has expressed concern over the damaging effects of illegal mining activities posing danger to Ghanaians.

According to him, the heavy, poisonous metals used by illegal miners in their galamsey activities have been linked to deformities in babies.

He added that this is due to placental tissues, which supply nutrients to unborn babies, being contaminated with heavy metals as a result of pollution in water bodies and land.

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Prof Ossei indicated that most of these cases recorded in pregnant women are prevalent in major mining areas.

“… A lot of doctor friends that I know, some of them call me from Prestea, Bogoso, Wassa Akropong, Bibiani, and tell me about how they are recording a lot of deformities in babies,” he said on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, September 27, 2025.

Prof Ossei continued; “Placenta is the one that the child needs, the child uses to feed from the mother. What is happening is that the placentas are all contaminated; they are all polluted with heavy metals. I have about 4,500 placentas that I have examined. The concentration, of course, [is high].

“Over 4,000 [placenta examination] of them from different regions in Ghana, where you see heavy metals in the cord and then the placenta itself. I'm talking about the cord that gets the nutrients and then the baby gets it through the mothers. We have the maternal side, and we have the fetal side. All these things have heavy metals.”

Prof Ossei further disclosed that another effect of the heavy metals from polluted resources is their link to spontaneous abortions in women.

He explained that approximately 500 cases of unintentional abortions have been recorded in the country, attributed to contamination from these harmful substances.

“… As we speak, I'm also doing another work about what we call spontaneous (unintentional) abortion.

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“… I have about 500 cases where women have gone to the hospital and abort their babies because of concentration of these heavy metals in their placenta. It's saddening when we see politicians trying to trivialise the whole thing. I'm not interested in whether the government or the president will declare state of emergency, but the most important thing is that the galamsey activity is really killing us,” he exclaimed.

MAG/AE

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