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

BackgroundEpidemiologic 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.ObjectiveWe investigated whether maternal and paternal preconception and maternal pregnancy urinary concentrations of parabens were associated with child behavior.MethodsWe 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 loge-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).ResultsThis 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$\beta \;$= 1.7; 95% confidence interval: 0.6, 2.8, methyl paraben beta$\beta \;$= 2.2; 95% confidence interval: 0.5, 3.9) and higher Behavioral Symptom Index T-scores (propyl paraben beta$\beta \;$= 1.4; 95% confidence interval: 0.3, 2.5, methyl paraben beta$\beta \;$= 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$\beta \;$= 1.0; 95% confidence interval: 0.04, 1.9) and maternal preconception (beta$\beta \;$= 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.ConclusionIn this cohort, paternal preconception urinary concentrations of propyl and methyl paraben were associated with worse parent-reported child behaviors.