Air pollution and fetal brain morphological development: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: There is a scarcity of evidence of the influence of exposure to air pollution during pregnancy on the human fetal brain characterised prenatally. We aimed to evaluate the association of exposure to air pollution with fetal brain morphology. Single-pollutant linear mixed regression models and multipollutant ridge regression models were applied to estimate the associations between air pollutants and fetal brain outcomes, controlled for confounders. Distributed lag linear models were used to identify the vulnerable windows. FINDINGS: lost significance for some indicators. A potential vulnerability window in mid-to-late pregnancy was identified for these associations. INTERPRETATION: Exposure to air pollution might affect brain morphological development as early as the fetal stage. Our findings could have important policy implications as they highlight the need to mitigate exposure of pregnant individuals to air pollution in urban areas to protect fetal brain development.