Associations of Prenatal Exposure to Phthalates with Measures of Cognition in 4.5-Month-Old Infants

Francheska M. Merced-Nieves, Kelsey L. C. Dzwilewski, Andrea Aguiar, Salma Musaad, Susan A. Korrick and Susan L. Schantz
Additional contact information
Francheska M. Merced-Nieves: Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Kelsey L. C. Dzwilewski: Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Andrea Aguiar: Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Salma Musaad: USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
Susan A. Korrick: Channing Division of Network Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Susan L. Schantz: Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: The association of prenatal phthalate exposure with physical reasoning was assessed in 159 (78 female; 81 male) 4.5-month-old infants from a prospective cohort. Phthalate metabolites were quantified in urine from 16–18 gestational weeks and a pool of five urines from across pregnancy. Infants’ looking times to physically impossible and possible events were recorded via infrared eye-tracking. Infants that recognize that one of the events is impossible will look at that event longer. Associations of phthalate biomarkers with looking time differences (impossible–possible) were adjusted for maternal age, infant sex, and order of event presentation, and effect modification by infant sex was assessed. Each interquartile range (IQR) increase of monoethyl phthalate in the pooled sample was associated with females’ increased looking time (? = 1.0; 95%CI = 0.3, 1.7 s) to the impossible event. However, for males, an IQR increase in monoethyl phthalate at 16–18 weeks (? = ?2.5; 95%CI = ?4.4,?0.6 s), the sum of di(isononyl) phthalate metabolites in the pooled sample (? = ?1.0; 95%CI = ?1.8, ?0.1 s), and the sum of all phthalate metabolites in both samples (? = ?2.3; 95%CI = ?4.4, ?0.2 s) were associated with increased looking to the possible event, suggesting that higher prenatal phthalate exposure is associated with poorer physical reasoning in male infants.

Keywords: neurodevelopment; phthalates; sexually dimorphic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1838/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1838/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:1838-:d:499093

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().