Background: Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are ubiquitous environmental contaminants that may influence growth and development.
Objective: We investigated the association between exposure to PBDEs via breast milk and anthropometric measurements in early childhood.
Methods: The Pregnancy Infection and Nutrition (PIN) Babies studies followed a cohort of North Carolina pregnant women and their children through 36 months of age. Breast milk samples obtained at 3 months postpartum were analyzed for PBDEs. We collected height and weight records from well-baby doctor visits and also measured children during study visits (n = 246 children with > 1,400 anthropometric measurements). We assessed the relationship between breast milk concentrations of five PBDE congeners—BDEs 28, 47, 99, 100, and 153—and child’s weight-for-age, height-for-age, and weight-for-height z-scores (WAZ, HAZ, and WHZ, respectively), adjusting for age; maternal age, race, prepregnancy BMI; parity; smoking during pregnancy; and breastfeeding, and stratifying by sex.
Results: Overall, PBDE exposures via breast milk were not associated with early-life anthropometric measures in the PIN Babies cohort. When stratified by sex, PBDEs in milk were inversely associated with WHZ for boys; however, associations did not follow a consistent pattern across the concentration gradient and were imprecisely estimated. Among girls, PBDEs tended to be associated with increased WHZ except for BDE-153, which was inversely associated with WHZ, though all estimates were imprecisely estimated.
Conclusions: We observed little evidence of associations between early-life PBDE exposures via breast milk and anthropometric measurements overall; however, our results prompt the need for sex-specific investigations in larger cohorts.
1UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; 2Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA; 3Division for Laboratory Sciences, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Recommended Citation:
Kate Hoffman,1,2 Michelle Mendez,et al. Lactational Exposure to Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers and Its Relation to Early Childhood Anthropometric Measurements[J]. Environmental Health Perspectives,2016-01-01,Volume 124(Issue 10):1656