Prenatal exposure to a common type of household pesticide may cause developmental delays in children, reports a new study published in the journal Pediatrics.
Researchers at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City found that increased prenatal exposure to pesticides containing piperonyl butoxide correlated with a lower score on a developmental test at age three.
They found that for each unit of increased exposure to the chemical, the odds of developmental delays went up 1.32-fold, and the children who had the highest rates of exposure were more than three times as likely to show slowed mental development.
Researchers analyzed data from almost 350 children from low-income black and Dominican families whose parents were registered with the Mothers and Newborns cohort at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health. After examining blood samples and personal air samples taken from the household environment of expectant mothers, they later measured the children’s development using of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development.
After adjusting for other factors, such as gender and quality of care-taking, testing at age 3 revealed that the children with the highest exposure to the chemical scored an average of 3.9 points lower than their cohorts.
Further research is needed before conclusions can be drawn. "[T]hese findings should be considered preliminary and may be useful for generating future hypotheses," advised the researchers.