Lactational Exposure to Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers and Its Relation to Early Childhood Anthropometric Measurements

Background: Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are ubiquitous environmental contaminants that may influence growth and development. Objective: We investigated the association between exposure to PBDEs via breast milk and anthropometric measurements in early childhood. Methods: The Pregnancy Infection and Nutrition (PIN) Babies studies followed a cohort of North Carolina pregnant women and their children through 36 months of age. Breast milk samples obtained at 3 months postpartum were analyzed for PBDEs. We collected height and weight records from well-baby doctor visits and also measured children during study visits (n = 246 children with > 1,400 anthropometric measurements). We assessed the relationship between breast milk concentrations of five PBDE congeners—BDEs 28, 47, 99, 100, and 153—and child’s weight-for-age, height-for-age, and weight-for-height z-scores (WAZ, HAZ, and WHZ, respectively), adjusting for age; maternal age, race, prepregnancy BMI; parity; smoking during pregnancy; and breastfeeding, and stratifying by sex. Results: Overall, PBDE exposures via breast milk were not associated with early-life anthropometric measures in the PIN Babies cohort. When stratified by sex, PBDEs in milk were inversely associated with WHZ for boys; however, associations did not follow a consistent pattern across the concentration gradient and were imprecisely estimated. Among girls, PBDEs tended to be associated with increased WHZ except for BDE-153, which was inversely associated with WHZ, though all estimates were imprecisely estimated. Conclusions: We observed little evidence of associations between early-life PBDE exposures via breast milk and anthropometric measurements overall; however, our results prompt the need for sex-specific investigations in larger cohorts. Citation: Hoffman K, Mendez M, Siega-Riz AM, Herring AH, Sjödin A, Daniels JL. 2016. Lactational exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers and its relation to early childhood anthropometric measurements. Environ Health Perspect 124:1656–1661; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP201