Prenatal exposure to bisphenol a and its analogues (bisphenol F and S) and ultrasound parameters of fetal growth.

Background: Bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to affect normal fetal growth, but human evidence on its analogues (BPF and BPS) is limited.

Object: To examine the associations between prenatal exposure to BPA and its analogues (BPF and BPS) and ultrasound parameters of fetal growth.

Methods: We measured urinary BPA, BPF, and BPS concentrations among 322 pregnant women during late pregnancy from a cohort study in Wuhan, China. Fetal biparietal diameter (BPD), head circumference (HC), femur length (FL), and abdominal circumference (AC) were measured by ultrasonography. The associations of maternal urinary BPA, BPF, and BPS concentrations with ultrasound parameters of fetal growth were estimated by multivariable adjusted models.

Results: We observed a gender difference in association of maternal urinary BPA concentrations and fetal HC (P for interaction = 0.003); each ln-unit increase in maternal urinary BPA concentration was associated with a mean decrease of 0.10 cm (95%CI: 0.18, -0.02) among boys and a mean increase of 0.14 cm (95%CI: 0.00, 0.28) among girls for HC. The associations were robust for urinary BPA concentrations modeled as tertiles or including urinary BPA, BPF, and BPS into mutual adjustment models. We did not observe robust associations between maternal urinary BPF and BPS concentrations and ultrasound parameters of fetal growth, though an inverse association with AC and a positive association with FL were estimated for maternal urinary BPF concentrations modeled as continuous variables.

Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to BPA but not BPF and BPS was sex-specifically associated with certain fetal growth parameters.