Critical Windows of Maternal Exposure to Biothermal Stress and Birth Weight for Gestational Age in Western Australia

There is limited and inconsistent evidence on the risk of ambient temperature on small for gestational age (SGA) and there are no known related studies for large for gestational age (LGA). In addition, previous studies used temperature rather than a biothermal metric.

Our aim was to examine the associations and critical susceptible windows of maternal exposure to a biothermal metric [Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI)] and the hazards of SGA and LGA.

We linked 385,337 singleton term births between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2015 in Western Australia to daily spatiotemporal UTCI. Distributed lag nonlinear models with Cox regression and multiple models were used to investigate maternal exposure to UTCI from 12 weeks preconception to birth and the adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of SGA and LGA.

Relative to the median exposure, weekly and monthly specific exposures showed potential critical windows of susceptibility for SGA and LGA at extreme exposures, especially during late gestational periods. Monthly exposure showed strong positive associations from the 6th to the 10th gestational months with the highest hazard of 13% for SGA ($\text{HR}=1.13$; 95% CI: 1.10, 1.14) and 7% for LGA ($\text{HR}=1.07$; 95% CI: 1.03, 1.11) at the 10th month for the 1st UTCI centile. Entire pregnancy exposures showed the strongest hazards of 11% for SGA ($\text{HR}=1.11$; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.18) and 3% for LGA ($\text{HR}=1.03$; 95% CI: 0.95, 1.11) at the 99th UTCI centile. By trimesters, the highest hazards were found during the second and first trimesters for SGA and LGA, respectively, at the 99th UTCI centile. Based on estimated interaction effects, male births, mothers who were non-Caucasian, smokers, $\ge 35$ years of age, and rural residents were most vulnerable.

Both weekly and monthly specific extreme biothermal stress exposures showed potential critical susceptible windows of SGA and LGA during late gestational periods with disproportionate sociodemographic vulnerabilities. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP12660.