Prenatal exposure to air pollutants and early childhood growth trajectories: A population-based prospective birth cohort study

Abstract Background Air pollution exposure during pregnancy has been documented to be associated with impaired fetal growth and adverse birth outcomes, but the evidence regarding the effects of air pollution on early childhood growth is still limited. Objective We aimed to explore the associations of exposure to air pollutants during pregnancy with childhood growth trajectories from birth to age of 6 years. Methods A prospective cohort study based on the administrative registration system was conducted covering 62,540 births in Wuhan, China between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2013 and followed for 6 years. Inverse distance weighted method was used to estimate the concentrations of air pollutants exposure for pregnant women. Group-based trajectory models (GBTM) were used to identify growth patterns of children: slow growth, normal growth, and rapid growth. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine the associations between prenatal exposure to air pollutants and childhood growth trajectories with adjustment for maternal age, educational status, pre-pregnancy BMI, residential areas, gestational diabetes, birth type, gender of infant, and breastfeeding duration. Results The mean (SD) of prenatal exposure concentrations for PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3 were 107.9 (30.4), 32.8(12.6), 55.8(13.1), 1081.2(293.1), and 81.6(31.0) μg/m3 respectively. Compared with normal growth trajectory, increased PM10 and CO exposure were significantly associated with higher risk of slow growth trajectory but lower risk of rapid growth trajectory. An increase in prenatal exposure to NO2 significantly increased both the risk of slow growth trajectory and rapid growth trajectory. Increased prenatal SO2 exposure was significantly associated with rapid growth trajectory and was not associated with low growth trajectory. With O3 exposure levels increased, risk to be rapid growth trajectory decreased. Prenatal air pollutants exposure had a greater impact on childhood growth of children who were girls, and those mothers lived in rural areas and were normal weight before pregnancy. Conclusions High levels of air pollutants exposure during pregnancy were associated with the risk of being in a trajectory with the deviation of BMI gain from birth to 6 years old. These findings suggest that efforts to identify children at risk of growth deviation in early childhood should pay attention to environmental exposure during pregnancy for their mothers.