Dear Colleagues,

Prenatal exposure to chemical, physical, and biological agents has been increasing worldwide as a result of rapid industrialization. Given this increasing exposure and the established capability for some of these exposures to readily transport from pregnant women to fetuses through the placenta, a critical and unresolved public health issue that has emerged is the extent to which prenatal exposure to these ubiquitous pollutants adversely affects fetal development, birth outcomes, and child development. The WHO estimates that 15–20% of all births worldwide have low birth weight (LBW, weight at birth less than 2500 g or 5.5 lb.), and about 11.1 percent of the world's live births are preterm (born after < 37 weeks of pregnancy).  Furthermore, the great majority of these adverse birth outcomes occur in low- and middle-income countries and especially in the most vulnerable populations.

Preterm birth is the most common direct cause of neonatal mortality. Impaired fetal and child growth constitute major public health threats to children, as they are widely accepted risk factors for many child and adult diseases, including hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and even cancers. Thus, identification of the risk factors for impaired fetal growth, postnatal growth, and childhood adiposity will help to improve children’s health and inform prevention strategies for many adult diseases.

Early epidemiologic studies have mainly assessed the cross-sectional relationship between prenatal exposures and adverse birth outcomes.  During the past decade, however, many outstanding prenatal or birth cohorts have been established in various parts of the world that provide the unique opportunity to prospectively evaluate the association between prenatal exposures over the course of pregnancy, fetal growth trajectories, birth outcomes, and child development. The prenatal cohort studies will help to test whether exposures occurring at different stages of pregnancy have different impacts on fetal and child outcomes. Identifying a narrower window of heightened vulnerability to prenatal exposure in humans is of significant public health interest and will help to determine effective clinical interventions and refine health policy targeted towards prevention.   

This Special Issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) focuses on the current state of knowledge on the links between prenatal exposures and impaired fetal growth, adverse birth outcomes, postnatal and early childhood growth trajectories, and children’s health, including adiposity and mental and psychomotor development. 

New research papers and reviews are welcome in this issue. Other manuscript types accepted include methodological papers, brief reports, and commentaries.

We will accept manuscripts from different disciplines dealing with prenatal exposures and fetal and child health, including epidemiology, reports from prenatal or birth cohort or intervention studies, reproductive health, prenatal and children’s health, exposure assessment, and risk and health impact assessments. Here are some examples of topics that could be addressed in this Special Issue:

1. Chemical pollutants  
• Natural contaminants: toxic metals, imbalanced essential metals, their interaction, etc.
• Anthropogenic chemicals: persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs); 1,4-Dioxane, organochlorine pesticides (such as DDT); polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB);  polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) and dibenzofurans (PCDF), commonly known as dioxins; and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).
• Organic compounds, such as bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates, etc.
2. Physical agents: ionizing and nonionizing radiation, etc.
3. Biological agents: Microorganisms and infectious diseases: viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc.
4. Air pollution: such as PM_2.5 and PM₁₀, O₃, NO₂, CO, etc.
5. Mixtures of pollutants.
6. Interaction between different pollutants.
7. Climate change and heat exposure.
8. Psychosocial hazards such as social adversity, maternal mental illness during pregnancy, and economic hardship.
9. Medications and drug use during pregnancy.

Prof. Dr. Tongzhang Zheng
Prof. Dr. Stephen L. Buka
Prof. Dr. Jun Jim Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• prenatal exposures
• fetal development
• adverse birth outcomes
• pregnancy complications
• postnatal growth
• children’s health
• window of exposure
• fetal origin of human diseases
• chemicals
• physical agents
• infectious agents
• emerging contaminants
• reproductive health