Paternal and maternal preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary phthalate metabolite and BPA concentrations in relation to child behavior

Background: Epidemiologic studies on health effects of parental preconception exposures are limited despite emerging evidence from toxicological studies suggesting that such exposures, including to environmental chemicals, may affect offspring health. Objective: We investigated whether maternal and paternal preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary phthalate metabolite and bisphenol A (BPA) concentrations were associated with child behavior.Methods: We analyzed data from the Preconception Environmental exposure And Childhood health Effects (PEACE) Study, an ongoing prospective cohort study of children aged 6-11 years whose parent(s) previously enrolled in the prospective preconception Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) study. Using linear mixed models, we estimated covariate-adjusted associations of 11 urinary phthalate metabolite and BPA con-centrations collected prior to conception and during pregnancy with Behavioral Assessment System for Children -3 (BASC-3) T-scores (higher scores indicate more problem behaviors).Results: This analysis included 134 mothers, 87 fathers and 157 children (24 sets of twins); parents were pre-dominantly non-Hispanic white (mothers and fathers86%). Higher maternal preconception or pregnancy mon-obenzyl phthalate (MBzP) concentrations were related to higher mean externalizing problems T-scores in their children (beta = 1.3 per 1-loge unit increase; 95 % CI:-0.2, 2.4 and beta = 2.1, 95 % CI: 0.7, 3.6, respectively). Higher maternal preconception monocarboxyoctyl phthalate (MCOP) was suggested to be related to lower mean externalizing problems T-scores (beta =-0.9; 95 % CI:-1.8, 0.0). Higher paternal preconception MCOP was sug-gestively associated with lower internalizing problems (beta =-0.9; 95 %CI:-1.9, 0.1) and lower Behavioral Symptoms Index (BSI) T-scores (beta =-1.3; 95 % CI:-2.1,-0.4).Conclusion: In this cohort, higher maternal preconception and pregnancy MBzP were associated with worse parent-reported child behavior, while higher maternal and paternal preconception MCOP concentrations were related to lower BASC-3 scores.