Early-Life exposure to environmental pollutants and endocrine disruptors: emerging risks and mechanistic insights in maternal, fetal, and child health.

Early-life exposure to environmental pollutants and endocrine disruptors is linked to adverse developmental and health outcomes in maternal, fetal, and child populations.

• Why it matters: Understanding how early environmental stressors impact development is crucial because they can alter programming related to disease susceptibility across the lifespan, highlighting a significant public health concern.
• What they did: The review synthesizes advances in exposomics, biomonitoring, and multi-omics techniques applied to assess complex exposures, placental biomarkers, and mechanistic pathways affecting development.
• The result: These insights support improved risk assessment, preventive strategies, and policies to protect maternal and child health, emphasizing the need for systems biology and longitudinal approaches to identify critical susceptibility windows.