International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

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Dr. Hongkai Zhu

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Guest Editor

1. Department of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA;
2. Department of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA.
Interests: emerging contaminants; exposome; metabonomics; exposure assessment; maternal and child health

Dr. Yiming Yao

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Guest Editor

MOE Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China
Interests: emerging contaminants; environmental behaviors; epidemiology; human exposure; exposome; metabolomics; biomarkers; health effects; PFASs; OPFRs
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Industrial and consumer product chemicals are widely used, resulting in ubiquitous human exposure in daily life. These chemicals, especially endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), can affect developmental milestones. Therefore, EDC exposures in pregnant women, developing fetuses, and early life in children are of particular interest. Adverse birth outcomes of impaired fetal growth, abnormal gestational length, and birth weight, as well as preterm birth, play an important role in predicting adulthood chronic pathologies, such as hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and even cancers. Understanding the relationship between environmental exposures and their influence on pregnancy and early development in children is critical to take interventions and thus improve health in adulthood. Longitudinal studies in chemical exposures to pregnant women and their effects on fetal and postnatal growth in children are still in their infancy. A growing body of evidence has indicated that EDCs may affect developmental endocrine programming and provoke oxidant stress in fetal growth but have not yielded consistent findings. In addition, most studies conducted to date mainly focus on one or two classes of EDCs, which makes it difficult to discuss the joint effects of actual environmental exposures.

The aim of this Special Issue on “Chemical Exposures during Pregnancy and Early Development in Children” is to publish high-quality papers of original research or review articles addressing, but not limited to, the following topics: (i) longitudinal biomonitoring studies in relation to legacy and alternative EDCs in pregnant women and infants; (ii) epidemiological studies regarding mother-to-child transfer of exposed chemicals throughout pre-pregnancy to antepartum and to early development in children; and (iii) cause-and-effect of chemical exposure in adverse birth outcomes and their potential pathophysiologic mechanisms. Population-based cohort studies that are designed using an exposome framework will be given a high priority.

Dr. Hongkai Zhu
Dr. Yiming Yao
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals
Preconceptual and fetal exposure
Fetal and childhood growth
Birth outcomes
Low birth weight (LBW)
Preterm birth (PTB)
Gestational length
Cohort
Longitudinal study
Pathophysiologic mechanism

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 676 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prenatal Exposure to Acetaminophen and Childhood Asthmatic Symptoms in a Population-Based Cohort in Los Angeles, California

by Zeyan Liew, Yuying Yuan, Qi Meng, Ondine S. von Ehrenstein, Xin Cui, Marie E. S. Flores and Beate Ritz

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(19), 10107; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph181910107 - 26 Sep 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2885

Abstract

Acetaminophen is the most common over-the-counter pain and fever medication used by pregnant women. While European studies suggest acetaminophen exposure in pregnancy could affect childhood asthma development, findings are less consistent in other populations. We evaluated whether maternal prenatal acetaminophen use is associated with childhood asthmatic symptoms (asthma diagnosis, wheeze, dry cough) in a Los Angeles cohort of 1201 singleton births. We estimated risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for childhood asthmatic outcomes according to prenatal acetaminophen exposure. Effect modification by maternal race/ethnicity and psychosocial stress during pregnancy was evaluated. The risks for asthma diagnosis (RR = 1.39, 95% CI 0.96, 2.00), wheezing (RR = 1.25, 95% CI 1.01, 1.54) and dry cough (RR =1.35, 95% CI 1.06, 1.73) were higher in children born to mothers who ever used acetaminophen during pregnancy compared with non-users. Black/African American and Asian/Pacific Islander children showed a greater than two-fold risk for asthma diagnosis and wheezing associated with the exposure. High maternal psychosocial stress also modified the exposure-outcome relationships. Acetaminophen exposure during pregnancy was associated with childhood asthmatic symptoms among vulnerable subgroups in this cohort. A larger study that assessed prenatal acetaminophen exposure with other social/environmental stressors and clinically confirmed outcomes is needed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical Exposures during Pregnancy and Early Development in Children)

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11 pages, 769 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prenatal Exposure to Parabens Affects Birth Outcomes through Maternal Glutathione S-Transferase (GST) Polymorphisms: From the Mothers and Kids Environmental Health (MAKE) Study

by Bohye Shin, Jeoung A. Kwon, Eun Kyo Park, Sora Kang, Seyoung Kim, Eunyoung Park and Byungmi Kim

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(6), 3012; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18063012 - 15 Mar 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2824

Abstract

Introduction: Human exposure to parabens is very common in daily life, and prenatal exposure to these chemicals is associated with poor birth outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of glutathione S-transferase (GST) polymorphisms on the association between prenatal exposure to parabens and birth outcomes. Methods: We conducted a multivariate analysis involving 177 subjects to determine the association between paraben concentrations and birth outcomes in mothers with GST mu 1 (GSTM1) and GST theta 1 (GSTT1) polymorphisms from 2017 to 2019. Furthermore, we determined the interactive effect between paraben levels and GSTM1/GSTT1 polymorphisms using regression analysis, in addition to a generalized linear model after stratifying GSTM1/GSTT1 genotype into three categories. Results: Methyl and propyl paraben concentrations were significantly and positively associated with birth weight (methyl, β = 116.525, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 22.460–210.590; propyl, β = 82.352, 95% CI = 9.147–155.557) in individuals with the GSTM1-null genotype. Moreover, the propyl paraben concentration was significantly associated with an increase in gestational age (β = 0.312, 95% CI = 0.085–0.539) in individuals with the GSTM1-null genotype. Conclusions: This study reported the association between prenatal paraben exposure and birth outcomes in individuals with GST polymorphisms. We found positive relationships of maternal exposure to methyl parabens with birth weight in both mothers with GSTM1 and GSTT1-null genotypes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemical Exposures during Pregnancy and Early Development in Children)

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