MECONIUM METAL CONCENTRATIONS AND INFANT TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

Author

Fiona Fogarty, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

1-1-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Environmental, Occupational, and Geospatial Health Sciences

Advisor(s)

Suzanne McDermott

Committee Members

Brian Pavilonis

Bo Cai

Subject Categories

Environmental Public Health | Epidemiology | Maternal and Child Health | Public Health

Keywords

Metals, Exposure Science, Environmental Health, BKMR, Maternal and Child Health

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Prenatal exposure to metals poses significant health consequences for early childhood development. Understanding the factors influencing metal concentrations that infants are exposed to in-utero is crucial for developing targeted interventions, particularly when maternal characteristics and environmental factors, may contribute to varying levels. Meconium offers insight into in-utero exposures for the developing infant, and the effect of each individual metal may be mediated or exacerbated by another and therefore should be studied in the context of a mixture. The effect of metal mixture exposure, as measured in meconium, on milestone and temperament outcomes has yet to be determined.

DESIGN: This dissertation comprises the work of two cross-sectional analyses, a scoping review, and longitudinal study, to illuminate potential relationships between metals in meconium and developmental and temperamental outcomes and factors contributing to exposure. For Aim 1, a cross-sectional analysis was conducted on 301 mother-newborn dyads, which assessed the association between maternal characteristics, including country of origin and residential factors, and meconium metal concentration in newborns delivered at public hospitals in New York City. For Aim 2, a second cross-sectional analysis compared the concentrations of ten metals in meconium samples between an urban and a suburban hospital in New York State. Meconium samples were collected and analyzed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Lastly, for Aim 3, 48 of the original 301 mother-child dyads were followed-up with to investigate the effect of the metal mixture on infant temperament and development.

RESULTS: In the first cross-sectional analysis concentrations of metals, including aluminum, iron, manganese, nickel, and lead, varied based on demographic variables in the study population. Asian and Spanish-speaking mothers had significantly higher lead concentrations compared to White and English-speaking mothers. No significant associations were found between maternal housing characteristics and metal concentrations, potentially due to participants predominantly residing in environmental justice areas. The findings suggest that prenatal metal exposure in this population may be influenced by prior exposures in the country of origin and socio-economic factors post-immigration. The findings of the second cross-sectional study indicated significantly higher levels of toxic metals, lead and cadmium (p< 0.05), in the urban samples, but higher copper, chromium, iron, and molybdenum (p< 0.001) were identified in suburban samples. The scoping review identified studies in low and high pollution areas. Our study findings were comparable with the results from low pollution locations. For the follow-up study, no associations between the metals and infant temperament and development were found to be significant.

CONCLUSION: These findings highlight the need for targeted public health interventions to reduce prenatal metal exposure in vulnerable populations. Understanding metal concentrations in newborns, both toxic and nutritionally necessary, from different geographic areas is an important step in quantifying expected concentrations and ultimately determining a threshold for assessment of prenatal exposure. While each metal has its own toxic threshold, how metals act in concert with each other may decrease that threshold. Our findings provide some evidence for future research to understand fetal nutrition and toxic exposures.

Recommended Citation

Fogarty, Fiona, "MECONIUM METAL CONCENTRATIONS AND INFANT TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/sph_etds/122