ArticleNeurotoxicology2023
Early pregnancy essential and non-essential metal mixtures and maternal antepartum and postpartum depressive symptoms.
Article in Neurotoxicology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of the Correlation Between Micronutrient Levels and Perinatal Depression.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Environmental Chemicals and Maternal Depression During and After Pregnancy: a Scoping Review.Current environmental health reports · 2026Article
- Association between heavy metals exposure and depression: findings of the NHANES from 2003 to 2020.European journal of medical research · 2026Article
- The Role of the cGAS/STING Pathway in Arsenic-Induced Neurotoxicity: Insights from the Crosstalk Between Astrocytes and Neurons.Biological trace element research · 2025Article
- A prospective study of a whole blood metal mixture and depressive symptoms among Black women from Detroit, Michigan.Neurotoxicology · 2025Article
- Cross-sectional and prospective associations of early childhood circulating metals with early and mid-childhood cognition in the Project Viva cohort.Environmental research · 2024Article
- Prenatal metal exposures and childhood gut microbial signatures are associated with depression score in late childhood.The Science of the total environment · 2024Article
- Association of metalloestrogens exposure with depression in women across reproductive lifespan.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMood disorders are common during and after pregnancy, and environmental metals may contribute to increased risk. Antepartum metal exposures have not been well characterized in relation to maternal depression. We evaluated the extent to which early pregnancy erythrocyte concentrations of essential and non-essential metals were prospectively associated with antepartum and postpartum depressive symptoms.
methodsParticipants were 1226 women in Project Viva, a longitudinal cohort recruited during pregnancy (1999-2002). We measured concentrations of 11 metals in maternal first trimester erythrocytes (arsenic, barium, cadmium, cesium, copper, mercury, magnesium, manganese, lead, selenium, zinc). Using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), we assessed elevated depressive symptoms (≥13; 0-30 scale) at mid-pregnancy and at 6 and 12 months postpartum. We applied latent class mixed modeling to identify symptom trajectories. Adjusting for maternal sociodemographics and co-exposures, we examined associations between the metal mixture and depressive symptoms using logistic (for EPDS≥13)/multinomial (for symptom trajectories) regression and quantile g-computation.
resultsIn this cohort of moderately high socioeconomic status participants (e.g., 72 % college graduate), low-level metal concentrations were weakly to moderately correlated (Spearman: -0.24 to 0.59); the prevalence of depressive symptoms ranged from 9 % (mid-pregnancy) to 6 % (12 months postpartum); and three trajectories (stable low; elevated mid-pregnancy, then decreasing; moderate mid-pregnancy, then increasing) best fit the EPDS data. The early pregnancy erythrocyte metal mixture was not associated with maternal depressive symptoms in logistic, multinomial, or mixture models. For individual metals, most confidence intervals (CI) included the null. There was weak evidence that arsenic, lead, and selenium were moderately associated with elevated odds of depressive symptoms and/or trajectories. However, the odds ratios (95 % CI) per doubling of these three metals were imprecise [e.g., arsenic: 1.13 (0.94, 1.40) for EPDS≥13 at six months postpartum; lead: 1.19 (0.80, 1.77) for EPDS≥13 at mid-pregnancy; selenium: 2.35 (0.84, 6.57) for elevated mid-pregnancy, then decreasing versus stable low trajectory]. DISCUSSION: We did not observe strong, consistent evidence of associations between early pregnancy erythrocyte metal concentrations and subsequent maternal antepartum and postpartum depressive symptoms.
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