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Maternal exposure to cooking oil fumes during pregnancy and autistic‐like behaviors in Chinese preschoolers

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Abstract

There is growing evidence that cooking oil fumes (COFs) are harmful indoor air pollutants. However, there is a dearth of research investigating whether maternal COFs exposure during pregnancy may affect children’s autistic-like behaviors in China. This study aimed to explore this association, and examine the effects of different cooking fuels and ventilation methods used by mothers on the presence of autistic-like behaviors. This study analyzed the survey data of the Longhua Child Cohort Study in 2017 with a total of 62,372 mothers enrolled in this study. A self-administrative questionnaire was used to collect information on socio-demographic characteristics, cooking habits during pregnancy, and autistic-like behaviors (measured using the Autism Behavior Checklist). After adjusting for potential confounders, the results showed that compared with children whose mothers never cooked during pregnancy, children whose mothers cooked sometimes, often, always during pregnancy had the higher risk of autistic-like behaviors. As the amounts of COFs exposed to and the frequency of cooking during pregnancy increased, the risk of a child’s autistic-like behaviors also increased. Mothers using natural gas as cooking fuels had a lower risk of their child having autistic-like behaviors, compared with mothers using coal or other cooking fuels. Furthermore, pregnant women using ventilation measures during cooking significantly decreased likelihood of the presence of autistic-like behaviors in their children. These results suggest that maternal exposure to COFs during pregnancy may increase the likelihood of the presence of autistic-like behaviors in offspring. These findings support a recommendation that pregnant women should avoid exposure to COFs and use clean fuels and ventilation equipment in kitchens to reduce the risk of autistic-like behaviors in children.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all families who participated in this research and the doctors from Longhua Maternal and Child Healthcare Center, especially Chuan-An Wu, Xiao-Na Yin, Guo-Min Wen, Deng-Li Sun, and Dan-Xia Xian, who offered much help during the field investigation.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 82173605).

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Jian-hui Yang involved in conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft preparation, and writing—review and editing. Esben Strodl involved in methodology, writing—review and editing, and supervision. Chuan-An Wu involved in funding acquisition, methodology, investigation, project administration, and supervision. Xiang-Yu Hou involved in methodology, writing—review and editing, and supervision. Xiao-Na Yin involved in investigation, and project administration. Guo-Min Wen involved in investigation, and project administration. Deng-Li Sun involved in investigation, and project administration. Dan-Xia Xian involved in investigation, and project administration. Jing-Yi Chen involved in methodology, investigation, and project administration. Ying-Jie Chen involved in methodology, investigation, and project administration. Jing Chen involved in methodology, investigation, and project administration. Wei-Qing Chen involved in funding acquisition, project administration, conceptualization, methodology, writing—review, editing, and supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei-Qing Chen.

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Ethics approval

The study was approved by the Ethic Committee of School of Public Health of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China (No. 2015–016). The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.2.2 Data collection. All the participants were informed of the aims and process of the study, gave informed consent, and participated deliberately in the study.

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Before enrolling in the data gathering phase, all participants gave informed contest on participating in the research.

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Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Lotfi Aleya

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Yang, JH., Strodl, E., Wu, CA. et al. Maternal exposure to cooking oil fumes during pregnancy and autistic‐like behaviors in Chinese preschoolers. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 74688–74698 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21113-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21113-0

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