A study on exposure to greenspace during pregnancy and lipid profile in cord blood samples

Abstract

Although evidence reporting the beneficial associations of prenatal greenspace exposure with pregnancy outcomes is increasing, there is still a lack of evidence on the potential association of such exposure to greenspace on fetal lipid profile. We aimed to first-time investigate the associations between prenatal exposure to greenspace and lipid levels in the cord blood. The present study was based on data from 150 expectant mothers, residents of Sabzevar city in Iran (2018). For each participant, we identified exposure to greenspace in residential surroundings, residential accessibility to green space, use of green spaces, and the number of plant pots inside the home. Measures of levels of triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and TC/HDL-C and TG/HDL-C ratios in samples of cord blood were applied to identify the lipid profile. We developed adjusted linear regression models to estimate the associations of each indicator of greenspace exposure with each cord blood lipid. We found increased greenspace in residential surroundings across a 100 m buffer, higher residential accessibility to green space, and more use of green spaces were associated with decreased cord blood lipid levels. The remainder findings regarding the greenspace in residential surroundings across 300 m and 500 m buffers and the number of plant pots were null. Some suggestions were observed for a potential mediatory role of air pollution. This study suggests that greenspace exposure during pregnancy may influence positively fetal lipid levels in the cord blood.