FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
1 March 2007

CONTACT: Jim Tobin
919-653-2582

Prenatal DDT Exposure May Cause Neurodevelopmental Delay

Report in Environmental Health Perspectives identifies critical window of fetal exposure

[Research Triangle Park, NC] Prenatal exposure to the insecticide DDT could damage children's neurodevelopment during the first year of life. Researchers in Mexico and New York have released findings in the March 2007 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives that suggest there is a critical window of fetal exposure during which neurodevelopment could be damaged.

DDT has been used for malaria control throughout the world since the early 1940s. Its use was discontinued in Mexico in the late 1990s, but DDE, its principal metabolite, persists in the environment, and has been detected in human blood serum and breast milk. Scientists already suspected that DDE levels in the fetus are similar to those in the mother, and further suspected that this metabolite is neurotoxic.

In the prospective cohort study, the research team recruited 1,585 reproductive-age women in the state of Morelos, Mexico, where DDT was used until 1998. Once a participant became pregnant, she provided blood samples and general information on the progress of her pregnancy. After birth, each child was evaluated on health, feeding, growth, and mental and psychomotor development at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months of age. Maternal intelligence and the quality of the home environment (analysis of parent–child communication and interaction) were both examined for confounding effects.

Among 244 mother-child pairs, the researchers found that higher levels of DDE in the first trimester of pregnancy were significantly associated with reduced psychomotor development during the first year of life. They found no significant association between DDE levels and neurodevelopment during the second or third trimester. Breastfeeding appeared to have a slightly protective effect on psychomotor development.

The lead author of the study was Luisa Torres-Sánchez. Other authors included Stephen J. Rothenberg, Lourdes Schnaas, Mariano E. Cebrián, Erika Osorio, Maria del Carmen Hernández, Rosa M. García-Hernández, Constanza del Rio-Garcia, Mary S. Wolff, and Lizbeth López-Carrillo. The article is available free of charge at http://www.ehponline.org/members/2007/9566/9566.html.

EHP is published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. EHP is an Open Access journal. More information is available online at http://www.ehponline.org/. Brogan & Partners Convergence Marketing handles marketing and public relations for EHP, and is responsible for the creation and distribution of this press release.

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