Paternal and maternal preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary concentrations of parabens in relation to child behavior

Abstract

Background: Epidemiologic studies of the effects of parental preconception paraben exposures on child behavior are limited despite emerging evidence suggesting that such exposures may affect offspring neurodevelopment.

Objective: We investigated whether maternal and paternal preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary concentrations of parabens were associated with child behavior.

Methods: We analyzed data from the Preconception Environmental exposure And Childhood health Effects Study, an ongoing prospective cohort of children aged 6-13 years and their parents. We estimated covariate-adjusted associations of log_e-transformed urinary methyl, propyl, and butyl paraben concentrations (individually using linear regression models and as a mixture using quantile g-computation) collected prior to conception and during pregnancy with Behavioral Assessment System for Children-3 and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function T-scores (higher scores indicate more problem behaviors).

Results: This analysis included 140 mothers, 81 fathers, and 171 children (25 sets of twins); parents were predominantly non-Hispanic white (88% for both mothers and fathers). In single paraben models, higher paternal preconception urinary propyl and methyl paraben concentrations were associated with higher Internalizing Problem T-scores (propyl paraben $\beta$ = 1.7; 95% confidence interval: 0.6, 2.8, methyl paraben $\beta$ = 2.2; 95% confidence interval: 0.5, 3.9) and higher Behavioral Symptom Index T-scores (propyl paraben $\beta$ = 1.4; 95% confidence interval: 0.3, 2.5, methyl paraben $\beta$ = 1.6; 95% confidence interval: -0.1, 3.3). Each quantile increase in the paternal mixture of three parabens was associated with a 3.4 (95% confidence interval: 0.67, 6.1) and 2.5 (95% confidence interval: 0.01, 5.0) increased internalizing problem and Behavioral Symptom Index T-scores respectively. Higher paternal preconception ( $\beta$ = 1.0; 95% confidence interval: 0.04, 1.9) and maternal preconception ( $\beta$ = 1.1 95% confidence interval: -0.1, 2.2) concentrations of propyl paraben were associated with higher Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function Metacognition Index T-scores in children, but the paraben mixtures was not.

Conclusion: In this cohort, paternal preconception urinary concentrations of propyl and methyl paraben were associated with worse parent-reported child behaviors.

Keywords: child neurobehavior; endocrine disrupting chemicals; parabens; paternal exposure; preconception exposure; pregnancy exposure.