A team of researchers has shown how endocrine-disrupting chemicals including Bisphenol-A (BPA) can affect maternal and paternal care when both parents are exposed.
University of Missouri researchers have used the monogamous, biparental California mouse species to prove that offspring born to parents who are exposed to BPA receive decreased parental care by both the mother and father. Scientists believe results could have relevance to human parenting as well.
Researcher Cheryl Rosenfeld said that endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA mimic the steroid hormones that establish the “circuitry” for the adult female brain during early development, but little was known about how this chemical might affect the father’s behavior.
Rosenfeld added that the study set out to address this critical void by exposing both males and females to the endocrine-disrupting chemicals BPA and Ethinyl estardiol (EE), the main active component of birth control pills, and examine the repercussions of rearing offspring.
Rosenfeld noted that they found that females who were exposed early on to BPA spent less time nursing, so the pups likely did not receive the normal health benefits ascribed to nursing. Likewise, they found that developmental exposure of males and females to these endocrine-disrupting chemicals resulted in their spending more time out of the nest and away from their pups, further suggesting that biparental care was reduced.
Findings also suggest that females can tell whether or not the male is compromised by BPA and adjusts her parental care accordingly. These females, although never exposed to BPA or endocrine disruptors, nursed their pups less and spent more time outside the nest.
The study appears in journal PLOS one. (ANI)