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Newly published research sheds light on how and where New York’s youngest residents are exposed to environmental metals before they are even born.
Two publications by recent CUNY SPH doctoral graduate Fiona Fogarty, Associate Professor Brian Pavilonis, Professor Suzanne McDermott, and colleagues show that meconium—the first stool passed by newborns—can be a powerful, low-cost tool for monitoring prenatal exposure to both toxic and essential metals in diverse urban and suburban communities.
In a paper published in the Journal of Perinatology, the investigators analyzed meconium from 157 newborns delivered at an urban hospital in Brooklyn and a suburban hospital in Orange County, New York, measuring ten metals—some toxic including lead and cadmium and others nutritionally essential such as iron, zinc, and copper. They found significantly higher levels of lead and cadmium in meconium samples from the Brooklyn hospital, while the suburban site showed higher concentrations of several essential metals, including copper, chromium, iron, and molybdenum.
To understand how these levels compared globally, the team also conducted a scoping review of studies using meconium to measure metals in newborns. The New York hospitals’ median metal concentrations were broadly similar to those reported for “low‑pollution” areas in North America, Europe, and Asia, suggesting that while differences between sites exist, overall prenatal metal exposure in these cohorts falls within a relatively low range.
A companion paper in Exposure and Health, also led by Dr. Fogarty and CUNY SPH faculty, focuses on 301 mother–newborn pairs from three public hospitals in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, all serving primarily immigrant and low‑income communities. Again analyzing ten metals in meconium, the researchers found that overall concentrations of toxic metals such as lead and cadmium were low and comparable to levels reported in low‑pollution regions worldwide, indicating limited prenatal exposure in this cohort despite New York City’s industrial legacy.
At the same time, the study identified striking differences by maternal race and language. Newborns of Asian mothers had meconium lead levels roughly 150–200 percent higher than those of non‑Hispanic white mothers, and babies of Spanish‑speaking mothers had significantly higher lead than those of English‑speaking mothers, patterns the authors suggest may reflect cumulative exposures in mothers’ countries of origin as well as post‑immigration conditions.
Given New York City’s designation of Environmental Justice Areas—neighborhoods with higher pollution burdens and social vulnerability—the research team examined whether meconium metal levels tracked with where mothers lived and the type or age of their housing. Most participants in the NYC study lived in Environmental Justice Areas and in private, often older housing, but the analysis found no significant associations between meconium lead levels and housing type, public versus private residence, building age, or environmental justice designation.
The authors note that these findings may reflect limited statistical power and the concentration of participants in a small number of high‑burden neighborhoods, rather than an absence of risk.
“These results illustrate the complexity of metal exposure pathways in large cities, where legacy contaminants, diet, occupation, and past residence outside the U.S. all contribute to cumulative body burden during pregnancy,” says Fogarty.
Both studies emphasize meconium’s value as a minimally invasive way to capture cumulative prenatal metal exposure over the second and third trimesters, in contrast to blood or urine tests that offer only a single time‑point snapshot.
The authors stress that there is currently no established standard for “safe” or “expected” meconium concentrations for either toxic or essential metals, respectively, and that even low‑level prenatal exposure to lead and cadmium is cause for concern because no safe threshold for in-utero exposure has been identified.
“We need more representative studies that follow children over time to link meconium metal levels with health and developmental outcomes, and to identify modifiable environmental and policy levers that can reduce exposures in the most affected communities,” says Fogarty.
Fogarty, F., Pavilonis, B., Shin, J. et al. Prenatal metal exposures in urban and suburban New York, and a scoping review to compare metal concentrations in meconium across studies. J Perinatol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-025-02504-w
Fogarty, F., Pavilonis, B., Shin, J. et al. Low Meconium Metal Concentrations in Newborns from NYC: A Cross-Sectional Analysis. Expo Health 17, 1037–1046 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-025-00709-0
