OBJECTIVE The relation between prenatal cocaine exposure and quality of movement was studied at 4 mo using the Posture and Fine Motor Assessment of Infants (PFMAI-I). METHOD Posture and fine motor scores of 4-month-old infants exposed to cocaine in utero (n = 370) were compared with an unexposed group (n = 533) within the context of gestational age, medical and demographic characteristics, an...

OBJECTIVES Famine exposure in utero can 'programme' an individual towards type 2 diabetes and obesity in later life. We sought to identify, (1) whether Bangladeshis exposed to famine during developmental life are programmed towards diabetes and obesity, (2) whether this programming was specific to gestational or postnatal exposure windows and (3) whether epigenetic differences were associated w...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the impact of gestational and childhood bisphenol A (BPA) exposures on behavior and executive function at 3 years of age and to determine whether child gender modified those associations. METHODS We used a prospective birth cohort of 244 mothers and their 3-year-old children from the greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area. We characterized gestational and childhood BPA exposure...

BACKGROUND Air pollution may be related to adverse birth outcomes. Exposure information from land-based monitoring stations often suffers from limited spatial coverage. Satellite data offer an alternative data source for exposure assessment. METHODS We used birth certificate data for births in Connecticut and Massachusetts, United States (2000-2006). Gestational exposure to PM2.5 was estimate...

Recent studies have shown that exposure to some nutritional supplements and chemicals in utero can affect the epigenome of the developing mouse embryo, resulting in adult disease. Our hypothesis is that epigenetics is also involved in the gestational programming of adult phenotype by alcohol. We have developed a model of gestational ethanol exposure in the mouse based on maternal ad libitum ing...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have suggested that elevated exposure to disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water during gestation may result in adverse birth outcomes. However, the findings of these studies remain inconclusive. OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to examine the association between blood biomarkers of late pregnancy exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs) in drinking water...

BACKGROUND Pregnant women are exposed to a mixture of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Gestational EDC exposures may be associated with changes in fetal growth that elevates the risk for poor health later in life, but few studies have examined the health effects of simultaneous exposure to multiple chemicals. This study aimed to examine the association of gestational exposure to five chem...

Gestational exposure to nicotine affects brain development, leading to numerous behavioural and physiological deficits in the offspring during adolescence. To analyse the molecular mechanisms underlying these effects, a pathway-focused oligonucleotide microarray was used to determine gene expression profiles in five brain regions (i.e. amygdala, prefrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, periventric...

OBJECTIVES The objectives of this study were 1) to assess whether there is an independent association between the level of prenatal cocaine exposure and infants' developmental test scores after control of potential confounding variables; and 2) if such an association exists, to determine which biological and social variables, individually and in interaction with each other, may modify it. MET...

Ewes were exposed to sewage sludge-fertilized pastures in a study designed investigate pre-conceptual and/or gestational exposure to environmental chemicals. The in utero impact on fetal thyroid morphology and function at day 110 (of 145) of pregnancy was then determined. Pre-conceptual exposure increased the relative thyroid organ weights in male fetuses. The number of thyroid follicles in thy...