Maternal Exposure To Environmental Chemicals And Health Outcomes Later In Life

The developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) paradigm, which was first presented as the Barker hypothesis, has been widely accepted in a variety of medical disciplines, ranging from public health to internal medicine, nutritional sciences, gynecology, pediatrics, and environmental health. Prenatal exposure to industrial chemicals at low doses has been shown to have a critical window during gestation and induce abnormalities later in life following a definite latent period. Such exposure scenarios can now be considered as a critical component that may act as initiating or modifying factors for health and disease status later in life and support the DOHaD paradigm. Exogenous chemicals include methylmercury, pesticides (organophosphates and neonicotinoids), tobacco, polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins, and diethylstilbestrol, and their late-onset health outcomes include cancers and neurocognitive behavioral abnormalities. In order to understand the DOHaD paradigm, attention needs to be drawn to chemical exposure during the early life stages. Subtle alterations in developmental neurotoxicity that can only be detected by cutting-edge technology using a hypothesis-driven approach are discussed in the present study.