Prenatal Exposure to organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides and children’s cognitive development at five years in an Urban Cohort of Pregnant Women

Abstract

Background/aim: Pyrethroids and Organophosphate pesticides are used to protect crops and reduce the transmission of insect-borne diseases. Previous studies have found an inverse association between exposure to these pesticides and children’s cognitive development. We aimed to investigate the effect of five urinary metabolites of pesticides, including pyrethroids, organophosphates, and 2,4-D herbicide among healthy pregnant women aged 18-43 living in New York City on the cognitive development of the children at five years old.Methods: Urinary biomarkers of exposure from 149 women in the Thyroid disruption and infant development cohort were measured. Values <LOD were assigned the value of LOD/(√2). The metabolites were divided by urinary creatinine to adjust for specific gravity. Linear regression models were used to evaluate the association between the log of the pesticide concentration adjusted for specific gravity and the child IQ measured by the third version of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-3) at five years old. We adjusted for race/ethnicity, maternal education, marital status, and household income during the prenatal period and maternal IQ, maternal education, and household income at age five. Associations were assessed for boys and girls separately. Results: We included 109 children with available WPPSI-3 IQ test measures at age five years in the analysis. We did not find association between prenatal exposure to any of the five pesticides and children's IQ at age five, with and without covariate adjustment in linear models. Conclusions: Our results indicated that the children’s IQ at age five years may not be associated with prenatal exposure to a group of five organophosphate, pyrethroid pesticides, and 2,4-D herbicide.