Association between Prenatal Exposure to Household Pesticides and Neonatal Weight and Length Growth in the Japan Environment and Children’s Study

Abstract

The effects of prenatal exposure to household pesticides on fetal and neonatal growth have not been fully clarified. The present study aims to determine the effects of prenatal exposure to pesticides on neonates’ body size and growth during the first month. This study included 93,718 pairs of pregnant women and their children from the Japan Environment and Children’s Study. Participants completed self-reporting questionnaires during their second or third trimesters on their demographic characteristics and frequency of pesticide use during pregnancy. Child weight, length, and sex were obtained from medical record transcripts. Birth weight and length, as well as weight and length changes over the first month, were estimated using an analysis of covariance. Frequency of exposure to almost all pesticides had no effects on birth weight and length. However, we found small but significant associations (i) between the use of fumigation insecticides and decreased birth weight, and (ii) between frequencies of exposure to pyrethroid pesticides, especially mosquito coils/mats, and suppression of neonatal length growth. Prenatal exposure to household pesticides, especially those containing pyrethroids, might adversely influence fetal and postnatal growth trajectories.

Varying modalities of perinatal exposure to a pesticide cocktail elicit neurological adaptations in mice and zebrafish

“…Epidemiological evidence traces a link between presence of environmental contaminants and a risk for the development of central nervous system (CNS) negative trajectories (Baghdadli et al, 2019;Bouchard et al, 2011;Coker et al, 2017;De Felice et al, 2016;Engel et al, 2016;Eskenazi et al, 2004;Matsuki et al, 2020;Philippat et al, 2018Philippat et al, , 2017Rauh et al, 2011;Ricceri et al, 2006;Roberts et al, 2019;Sagiv et al, 2019;Von Ehrenstein et al, 2019). Considering the existence of pesticides in agricultural crops and in environmental matrices such as water, investigating the impact of contaminants on brain functions is relevant to public health and ecotoxicology.…”

Simultaneous exposure to both Zika virus and household insecticides during pregnancy, and fetal growth and infant developmental behavior outcomes at 18 months, in Guadeloupe

“…However, in the Japan Environment and Children's Study of 71,116 mother-child pairs, frequency of use of household pesticides was not associated with reduced birth weight (Matsuki et al 2020).…”

Prenatal Exposure to Insecticides and Weight Trajectories Among South African Children in the VHEMBE Birth Cohort

“…15 This suggests that the potential effect of pyrethroid metabolites on child growth may not be evident at birth, and the lower exposures and statistical power in the latter study may explain the null finding at 1 year. The only study to investigate a dynamic growth metric did not find an association between self-reported use of pyrethroid-containing products and weight change during the first month, 28 however, nondifferential exposure misclassification may have contributed to this null finding. Among the few animal studies, exposure to cypermethrin, an insecticide used for indoor residual spraying in the VHEMBE area that metabolizes into cis/trans -DCCA and 3-PBA, resulted in lower weight from childhood to adulthood among rat offspring.…”