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Prenatal exposure to multiple environmental chemicals and birth size

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Background

Epidemiological studies addressing the combined effects of exposure to chemical mixtures at different stages of pregnancy on birth size are scarce.

Objective

To evaluate the association between prenatal exposure to chemical mixtures and birth size.

Methods

Our previous study repeatedly measured the urinary concentrations of 34 chemical substances among 743 pregnant women and identified three distinct clusters of exposed population and six dominant principal components of exposed chemicals in each trimester. In this study, we assessed the associations of these exposure profiles with birth weight, birth length, and ponderal index using multivariable linear regression.

Results

We found that compared with women in cluster 1 (lower urinary chemical concentrations), women in cluster 2 (higher urinary concentrations of metals, benzothiazole, benzotriazole, and some phenols), and women in cluster 3 (higher urinary concentrations of phthalates) were more likely to give birth to children with higher birth length [0.23 cm (95% CI: −0.03, 0.49); 0.29 cm (95%CI: 0.03, 0.54), respectively]. This association was observed only in 1st trimester. In addition, prenatal exposure to PC3 (higher benzophenones loading) was associated with reduced birth length across pregnancy [−0.07 cm (95% CI: −0.18, 0.03) in 1st and 2nd trimester; −0.13 cm (95% CI: −0.24, −0.03) in 3rd trimester]. Exposure to PC6 (higher thallium and BPA loading in 2nd trimester) was associated with increased birth length [0.15 cm (95% CI: 0.05, 0.26)]. Compared with other outcomes, associations of both clusters and PCs with birth length were stronger, and these associations were more pronounced in boys.

Impact Statement

Exposure to multiple chemicals simultaneously, the actual exposure situation of pregnant women, was associated with birth size, indicating that chemical mixtures should be taken more seriously when studying the health effects of pollutants.

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Fig. 1: Trimester-specific associations between birth size and cluster memberships (cluster 1 as reference).
Fig. 2: Trimester-specific associations between birth size and PC scores.
Fig. 3: Associations between chemical mixtures exposure and birth outcomes, evaluated by weighted quantile sum regression (WQS) models based on average concentrations over three trimesters.

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Data availability

Data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of the research hospital and all the study participants.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91743103), the National Institutes of Health (R01 ES029082) and Program for HUST Academic Frontier Youth Team (2018QYTD12).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Maternal and Children Health, Wuhan Children’s Hospital (Wuhan Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital), Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Huan Chen & Yuanyuan Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Environment and Health, Ministry of Education & Ministry of Environmental Protection, and State Key Laboratory of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Huan Chen, Wenxin Zhang, Xiaojie Sun, Wei Xia, Shunqing Xu & Yuanyuan Li

  3. State Key Laboratory of Environmental and Biological Analysis, Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, SAR, People’s Republic of China

    Yanqiu Zhou, Jiufeng Li, Hongzhi Zhao & Zongwei Cai

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  1. Huan Chen
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  2. Wenxin Zhang
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  3. Xiaojie Sun
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Contributions

HC: Investigation, Data analysis, Writing—original Draft—review & editing; WZ: Investigation, Data analysis, Writing—original Draft—review & editing; XS: Investigation, Review & editing; YZ: Investigation, Review & editing; JL: Investigation, Review & editing; HZ: Investigation, Review & editing; SX: Resources, Review & editing; WX: Resources, Review & editing; ZC: Resources, Review & editing; YL: Conceptualization, Resources, Review & editing.

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Correspondence to Yuanyuan Li.

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Chen, H., Zhang, W., Sun, X. et al. Prenatal exposure to multiple environmental chemicals and birth size. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-023-00568-4

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