Parental Preconception and Maternal Pregnancy Endocrine Disrupting Chemical Exposure and Child Health Outcomes

Abstract

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are widely used in a variety of products people are exposed to daily including food packaging, medical products, and personal care products which has resulted in ubiquitous human exposure.(Stoiber 2019; CDC 2017) Pregnancy is a well-recognized period of susceptibility for both the mother and her fetus, during which chemical exposures can contribute to numerous adverse child health outcomes.(Joseph M. Braun 2017a; Joseph M Braun, Sathyanarayana, and Hauser 2013) Specifically, studies have suggested that exposure to EDCs during pregnancy or in early childhood may be associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders.(Joseph M. Braun 2017b; Lanphear et al. 2005) Emerging data suggests that the preconception period is also a key susceptible period of exposure that merits further study.(Joseph M. Braun, Messerlian, and Hauser 2017) The Preconception Environmental exposure And Childhood health Effects (PEACE) study cohort provides a unique opportunity to explore preconception EDC concentrations of both parents as well as maternal pregnancy concentrations. This dissertation aims to further explore the association between parental preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary concentrations of three groups of EDCs and various child behaviors. All three studies outlined in this dissertation were done with data from the PEACE cohort. The PEACE study cohort recruited children aged 6-13 years whose parent(s) previously enrolled in a prospective fertility cohort of over 900 women and 500 men between the ages of 18 and 45 years who were attending the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Center. The first study outlined in this dissertation examines the association of parental preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary phthalate biomarker and bisphenol-A (BPA) concentrations with child behavior measured by the Behavioral Assessment System for Children-3 (BASC-3). In this study, higher maternal preconception and pregnancy MBzP were associated with worse parent-reported child behavior, while higher maternal and paternal preconception MCOP concentrations were related to lower BASC-3 scores. The second study in this dissertation explored the association of parental preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary phthalate biomarker and bisphenol-A (BPA) concentrations with child eating behavior measured by the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ). In this paper, we found that higher maternal and paternal preconception urinary concentrations of some phthalate biomarkers were associated with increased food approaching behavior scores and decreased food avoiding behavior scores, which considered together could lead to increased adiposity in children. Lastly, the third study in this dissertation investigated whether maternal and paternal preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary concentrations of parabens (individually using linear mixed effect models and as a mixture using quantile g-computation) were associated with child behavior measured by the BASC-3 and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). In this cohort, paternal preconception urinary concentrations of propyl and methyl paraben were associated with worse parent-reported child behaviors. This dissertation adds to the literature regarding the association between maternal pregnancy EDC concentrations and child behavior, and expands our knowledge about the potential long-term health effects of EDC exposure in both the maternal and paternal preconception periods.