A new study published by Ashley Malin’s research team is one of the first studies to look at prenatal fluoride exposure and infant development at such young ages, and is the first to do so in the United States.
The study was done in Los Angeles, CA and followed participants in the MADRES cohort to see how exposure to fluoride effects infant motor development, problem solving, communication and personal-social functioning at 6, 9, 12, and 18-months.
The study found that a 1 mg/L increase in maternal urine F was associated with a statistically significant 22% worse score on gross motor development. Gross motor development is commonly considered to be a neurodevelopmental effect.
Highlights
- This is the first US study on prenatal fluoride exposure and infant neurodevelopment
- Higher maternal urinary fluoride was linked with poorer infant gross motor scores
- Third-trimester fluoride exposure may affect early gross motor development
- There were no significant associations for fine motor, social, or cognitive scores, though all three had adverse directions of association.
While only the gross motor development domain among the five domains of development measured by the test instrument had a statistically significant adverse association with F, three of the other domains also had adverse directions of association, and there are plausible reasons given in the paper for why gross motor development effects could be easier to detect than the other domains.
This is a well-conducted study and would be considered high quality under the NTP review’s criteria or any standard for this type of study.
