Occurrence of perfluoroalkyl substances in cord serum and association with growth indicators in newborns from Beijing

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), a group of environmental pollutants, persistently exist in the environment. To investigate the associations between PFASs levels in cord serum and birth weight, birth length and ponderal index, we measured PFASs in cord serum samples from 170 infants from Feb. 2012 to Jun. 2012 in Beijing, China. The mean concentrations in cord serum samples for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) and perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFUnA) were 1.285 ng/mL, 1.228 ng/mL, 0.230 ng/mL, 0.224 ng/mL, 0.100 ng/mL and 0.085 ng/mL, respectively. First-born children had slightly higher exposure levels of PFHxS (p < 0.001) and PFOA (p = 0.03) than second-born or third-born children. The spearman correlation coefficients with gestation time were individually 0.160 (p = 0.038) for PFHxS and 0.202 (p = 0.008) for PFOA. Both univariate and multivariate linear regression analysis showed that the exposure levels of PFASs had no statistically significant associations with birth weight, birth length or ponderal index in the present population. For male infants, we observed that PFHxS positively correlated with birth length, but the levels of PFUnA were negatively associated with birth length.