Higher circulating concentration of maternal 25(OH)D(3) in pregnancy was associated with improved mental and psychomotor development in infants.

Background:Natural environments, including green spaces, may have beneficial impacts on brain development. However, longitudinal evidence of an association between long-term exposure to green spaces and cognitive development (including attention) in children is limited.Objectives:We evaluated the association between lifelong residential exposure to green space and attention during preschool and early primary school years.Methods:This longitudinal study was based on data from two well-established population-based birth cohorts in Spain. We assessed lifelong exposure to residential surrounding greenness and tree cover as the average of satellite-based normalized difference vegetation index and vegetation continuous fields, respectively, surrounding the child’s residential addresses at birth, 4–5 y, and 7 y. Attention was characterized using two computer-based tests: Conners’ Kiddie Continuous Performance Test (K-CPT) at 4–5 y (n=888) and Attentional Network Task (ANT) at 7 y (n=987). We used adjusted mixed effects models with cohort random effects to estimate associations between exposure to greenness and attention at ages 4–5 and 7 y.Results:Higher lifelong residential surrounding greenness was associated with fewer K-CPT omission errors and lower K-CPT hit reaction time-standard error (HRT-SE) at 4–5 y and lower ANT HRT-SE at 7 y, consistent with better attention. This exposure was not associated with K-CPT commission errors or with ANT omission or commission errors. Associations with residential surrounding tree cover also were close to the null, or were negative (for ANT HRT-SE) but not statistically significant.Conclusion:Exposure to residential surrounding greenness was associated with better scores on tests of attention at 4–5 y and 7 y of age in our longitudinal cohort. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP694

Background: There is increasing interest in the potential effects of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) on children’s neuropsychological development, but only a few small studies have evaluated such effects.Objectives: Our goal was to examine the association between PBDE concentrations in colostrum and infant neuropsychological development and to assess the influence of other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) on such association.Methods: We measured concentrations of PBDEs and other POPs in colostrum samples of 290 women recruited in a Spanish birth cohort. We tested children for mental and psychomotor development with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 12–18 months of age. We analyzed the sum of the seven most common PBDE congeners (BDEs 47, 99, 100, 153, 154, 183, 209) and each congener separately.Results: Increasing Σ7PBDEs concentrations showed an association of borderline statistical significance with decreasing mental development scores (β per log ng/g lipid = –2.25; 95% CI: –4.75, 0.26). BDE-209, the congener present in highest concentrations, appeared to be the main congener responsible for this association (β = –2.40, 95% CI: –4.79, –0.01). There was little evidence for an association with psychomotor development. After adjustment for other POPs, the BDE-209 association with mental development score became slightly weaker (β = –2.10, 95% CI: –4.66, 0.46).Conclusions: Our findings suggest an association between increasing PBDE concentrations in colostrum and a worse infant mental development, particularly for BDE-209, but require confirmation in larger studies. The association, if causal, may be due to unmeasured BDE-209 metabolites, including OH-PBDEs (hydroxylated PBDEs), which are more toxic, more stable, and more likely to cross the placenta and to easily reach the brain than BDE-209.