Maternal antenatal stress has little impact on child sleep: results from a prebirth cohort in Mexico City.

Study Objectives: Maternal antenatal stress may influence offspring development and behavior, but any association with child sleep is unknown.

Methods: From 2007 to 2011, we recruited pregnant women in Mexico City to the Programming Research in Obesity, Growth, Environment, and Social Stressors prebirth cohort. Mothers completed the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS, a 4-item questionnaire assessing past-month stress) and the Crisis in Family Systems measure assessing negative life events (NLEs; how many domains among the 11 assessed in which the mother experienced a stressful event in the prior 6 months)-with higher scores reflecting higher stress-and provided 5 timed salivary samples per day on 2 consecutive days, from which we derived cortisol area under the curve, slope, and awakening response.

Prenatal co-exposure to manganese and depression and 24-months neurodevelopment.

Background: Normal prenatal neurodevelopment follows stages that are potentially influenced by both chemical and psychosocial environments. Exposure to elevated manganese during this critically vulnerable period has been found to be neurotoxic. Independently, maternal prenatal depression has been associated with subsequent neurodevelopmental decrements in children.

Lead in candy consumed and blood lead levels of children living in Mexico City.

Background: Recent studies have shown that lead exposure continues to pose a health risk in Mexico. Children are a vulnerable population for lead effects and Mexican candy has been found to be a source of exposure in children. There are no previous studies that estimates lead concentrations in candy that children living in Mexico City consume and its association with their blood lead level.

Longitudinal associations of age and prenatal lead exposure on cortisol secretion of 12-24 month-old infants from Mexico City.

Background: Cortisol has functions on homeostasis, growth, neurodevelopment, immune function and the stress response. Secretion follows a diurnal rhythm that mediates these processes. Our objective was to examine the association between prenatal lead exposure and infant diurnal cortisol rhythms.

Prenatal and postnatal stress and wheeze in Mexican children: Sex-specific differences.

Background: Increasing evidence links early-life exposure to psychosocial stress with adverse childhood respiratory outcomes. The influence of exposure timing has not been completely elucidated.

Objective: To examine the association between prenatal and postnatal maternal stress and wheeze in 417 children enrolled in a prospective birth cohort in Mexico City.

Relating Phthalate and BPA Exposure to Metabolism in Peripubescence: The Role of Exposure Timing, Sex, and Puberty.

Context: Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals during development may play a role in the increasing prevalence of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents by interfering with metabolic homeostasis.

Objective: To explore associations between in utero and peripubertal urinary phthalate metabolite and bisphenol A (BPA) concentrations and markers of peripubertal metabolic homeostasis.

Design: Early Life Exposure in Mexico to Environmental Toxicants (ELEMENT): a longitudinal cohort study of pregnant women in Mexico City and their offspring.

Offspring DNA methylation of the aryl-hydrocarbon receptor repressor gene is associated with maternal BMI, gestational age, and birth weight.

Prenatal smoke exposure, maternal obesity, aberrant fetal growth, and preterm birth are all risk factors for offspring metabolic syndrome. Cord blood aryl-hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AHRR) DNA methylation is responsive to maternal smoking during pregnancy. AHRR serves not only to inhibit aryl-hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) transcription, which is involved in mediating xenobiotic metabolism, but it is also involved in cell growth and differentiation.

Mercury and psychosocial stress exposure interact to predict maternal diurnal cortisol during pregnancy.

Background: Disrupted maternal prenatal cortisol production influences offspring development. Factors influencing the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis include social (e.g.

Relationships between lead biomarkers and diurnal salivary cortisol indices in pregnant women from Mexico City: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Lead (Pb) exposure during pregnancy may increase the risk of adverse maternal, infant, or childhood health outcomes by interfering with hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis function. We examined relationships between maternal blood or bone Pb concentrations and features of diurnal cortisol profiles in 936 pregnant women from Mexico City.

Methods: From 2007-11 we recruited women from hospitals/clinics affiliated with the Mexican Social Security System.