A prospective cohort study of biomarkers of prenatal tobacco smoke exposure: the correlation between serum and meconium and their association with infant birth weight

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Joe M. Braun, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Julie L. Daniels, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Charles Poole, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Andrew F. Olshan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Richard Hornung, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; John T. Bernert, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Yang Xia, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Cynthia Bearer, University of Maryland; Dana Boyd Barr, Emory University; Bruce P. Lanphear, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
• Language: English
• Date: 2010-08-27
• Publisher: BioMed Central
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2010 Braun et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
• Final Published Version (URL): http://www.ehjournal.net/content/9/1/53
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Environmental Health
• ISSN: 1476-069X
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 53
• Start Page: 1
• End Page: 11
• Grant/Funding Information: This study was funded in part by the NICHD Reproductive, Perinatal, and Pediatric Epidemiology Training Grant (T32-HD052468-01), a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (P30ES10126), and from a Children's Environmental Health Center Grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the US Environmental Protection Agency (PO1 ES11261).
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Epidemiology; Health Sciences, Public Health

Abstract

Background: The evaluation of infant meconium as a cumulative matrix of prenatal toxicant exposure requires comparison to established biomarkers of prenatal exposure. Methods: We calculated the frequency of detection and concentration of tobacco smoke metabolites measured in meconium (nicotine, cotinine, and trans-3'-hydroxycotinine concentrations) and three serial serum cotinine concentrations taken during the latter two-thirds of pregnancy among 337 mother-infant dyads. We estimated the duration and intensity of prenatal tobacco smoke exposure using serial serum cotinine concentrations and calculated geometric mean meconium tobacco smoke metabolite concentrations according to prenatal exposure. We also compared the estimated associations between these prenatal biomarkers and infant birth weight using linear regression. Results: We detected nicotine (80%), cotinine (69%), and trans-3'-hydroxycotinine (57%) in most meconium samples. Meconium tobacco smoke metabolite concentrations were positively associated with serum cotinine concentrations and increased with the number of serum cotinine measurements consistent with secondhand or active tobacco smoke exposure. Like serum cotinine, meconium tobacco smoke metabolites were inversely associated with birth weight. Conclusions: Meconium is a useful biological matrix for measuring prenatal tobacco smoke exposure and could be used in epidemiological studies that enroll women and infants at birth. Meconium holds promise as a biological matrix for measuring the intensity and duration of environmental toxicant exposure and future studies should validate the utility of meconium using other environmental toxicants.