ArticleThe Lancet. Planetary health2025
Air pollution and fetal brain morphological development: a prospective cohort study.
Article in The Lancet. Planetary health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- In utero air pollution exposure and pre- and postnatal brain development: a review.Neuroscience applied · 2026Review
- Unraveling the impact of prenatal air pollution for neonatal brain maturation.Environment international · 2025Article
- Fetal development and the air pollution exposome: an integrative perspective of health pathways.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
21 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
backgroundThere 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.
methodsIn this prospective cohort study, we used data from the Barcelona Life Study Cohort, Spain, which recruited 1080 pregnant women at 8-14 weeks of gestation between Oct 16, 2018, and April 14, 2021, from three major university hospitals in Barcelona. Eligible participants were aged 18-45 years, had a singleton pregnancy, and had a fetus without major congenital anomalies. Third-trimester transvaginal neurosonography was applied to evaluate fetal brain morphological development. We integrated comprehensive data on time-activity patterns with land use regression, dispersion, and hybrid models to estimate exposure to NO
findingsAmong 1080 participants recruited at baseline, 954 attended the follow-up for the neurosonographic examination, 754 of whom were included in this study. In single-pollutant models, we found that prenatal exposure to NO
interpretationExposure 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.
fundingEuropean Research Council.
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