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Updated: May 12, 2026

Long-term Behavioral and Reproductive Consequences of Embryonic Exposure to Low-dose Toxicants
Published on: March 6, 2018
Associations of prenatal exposure to phenols with birth outcomes
Rong Tang1, Min-Jian Chen, Guo-Dong Ding
1State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, Institute of Toxicology, Nanjing Medical University, 818 East Tianyuan Road, Nanjing 211166, China.
Abstract:
Many phenols are known to mimic or antagonize hormonal activities and may adversely affect fetal growth. A study of 567 pregnant women was conducted to investigate the relationship between prenatal phenol exposure and birth outcomes, including birth weight, length, and gestational age. We measured the concentrations of bisphenol A, benzophenone-3, 4-n-octylphenol and 4-n-nonylphenol in maternal urine and examine their association with birth outcomes. Categories of urinary benzophenone-3 concentration were associated with decreased gestational age in all infants (p for trend = 0.03). Between middle and low exposure groups, we also found bisphenol A was negatively associated with gestational duration (βadjusted = -0.48 week; 95% confidence interval: -0.91, -0.05). After stratification by gender, we found the consistent results in infant boys with those in all infants, but we did not observe significant association for girls. In conclusion, we found prenatal phenol exposure was sex-specifically related to birth outcomes.
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