Developmental time as a design principle for maternal and child exposomics

Abstract

in girls [4] . This rapid activation illustrates how the endocrine context for interpreting exposure-related effects can change within a narrow developmental window, while maturing metabolism and excretion also after how exposure biomarkers should be interpreted. In the Odense Child Cohort, hormones were measured in 479 infants at three months and linked to maternal prenatal phthalate biomarkers, demonstrating that minipuberty can be phenotyped within a cohort and can yield exposure-associated signals in boys [5] . Because phthalates were measured prenatally, however, this study does not substitute for biomonitoring during infancy. What remains limited is replication using harmonized measurements of exposure and biological state within the same postnatal window. Whether postnatal exposure during the window has independent effects on reproductive development remains an open question. We propose developmental-event-guided