Prenatal environmental antibiotics and fetal and postnatal growth: A biomonitoring-based prospective study in Eastern China

Abstract

Thus far, the effect of environmental antibiotics exposure to offspring's growth remains unclear. Here we aimed to evaluate whether and to what extent environmental antibiotics exposure is associated with fetal and postnatal growth. A total of 735 pregnant women and their full-term offspring from the Shanghai Obesity Birth Cohort were involved in the study. Maternal urine specimen was collected during the third trimester, and urinary concentration of fifteen environmental antibiotics was measured by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry and enzymatic method. Children were followed at birth, 12, 24 and 60 months, and growth parameters of the weight and height of children were recorded. Linear regression model was applied, and it was found that maternal veterinary antibiotic (VA) concentration was negatively associated with birth weight and ponderal index [per natural-logarithm (ln)-unit: adjusted β (95% confidence interval, CI) = – 42.1 (– 74.0, – 10.3) for birth weight, –0.11 (– 0.19, – 0.02) for birth weight z-score, and – 0.03 (– 0.05, – 0.002) for ponderal index]. Regarding specific VA, each ln-unit increment of florfenicol concentrations was likely to be associate with 39.7 g (95%CI: – 69.3, – 10.1) reduced birth weight, 0.10 (95%CI: – 0.18, – 0.02) reduced birth weight z-score, and 0.02 g/cm3 (95%CI: – 0.04, – 0.00) reduced ponderal index. Ciprofloxacin, a preferred-as-veterinary antibiotic, showed a similar dose-response relationship with neonatal anthropometric parameters to florfenicol. However, these adverse effects diminished as children grew up to 12-, 24- and 60-month-old. Larger prospective cohort studies and animal experiments are warranted to verify the hypothesis that environmental antibiotics exposure in early life, even at low doses, may cause fetal growth restriction.