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Maternal Micro- and Nanoplastic Exposure and Offspring Developmental Programming: A Systematic Review and DOHaD-Centred Mechanistic Evidence Map
Summary
This study is actually a research plan, not results yet — scientists are designing a careful review of existing studies on whether tiny plastic particles (microplastics and nanoplastics) that a pregnant person is exposed to can cross the placenta and affect a baby's development. Rather than assuming plastics definitely harm babies, the researchers want to map out exactly what's been proven, what's just suspected, and what's still unknown, since current studies use very different methods that are hard to compare directly. Once completed, this review should give clearer answers about whether pregnant people need to worry about plastic exposure affecting their child's health — but for now, the science is still
This prospectively registered update will evaluate human and experimental evidence concerning maternal exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs), placental uptake and dysfunction, molecular and cellular reprogramming, and developmental outcomes across offspring organs and systems. Rather than assuming a linear maternal-placental-offspring pathway, the review will construct a link-level DOHaD-centred mechanistic evidence map that distinguishes directly tested connections from indirect, contradictory, and missing links. Human observational associations, mammalian experimental evidence, supporting placental or organoid evidence, and non-mammalian bridging evidence will be synthesised separately. The review will use a high-sensitivity inception-to-date search, prespecified subgroup comparisons, outcome-level OHAT risk-of-bias assessment, a mechanistic-link confidence rubric, publication-status sensitivity analysis, and SWiM-guided structured qualitative synthesis. No meta-analysis will be conducted because substantial heterogeneity is anticipated in model, particle characteristics, dose metric, exposure window, experimental unit, and endpoint.