According to the findings of a study published in Allergy, prenatal parabens (ethylparaben and n‐butylparaben) exposure may elevate children's susceptibility for persistent atopic dermatitis with the onset of disease at a very early age. Researchers undertook this study to determine if prenatal paraben exposure was linked with a raised risk of  atopic dermatitis in children.

This study was based on a sub cohort of 261 mother-children pairs of the prospective German mother-child cohort LINA. At gestational week 34, about eight paraben species were quantified in the maternal urine. Childhood atopic dermatitis was divided into 4 distinct phenotypes on the basis of the parental report of clinician-diagnosed dermatitis from age one to eight years, and onset and persistence of disease.

It was observed that a total of 12 (4.6%) and 32 (12.3%) children until age two were classified as suffering from very early‐onset atopic dermatitis  with or without remission. Notably,  31 children (11.9%) were classified as early-onset (after the age of two), and 8 children (3.1%) as childhood-onset atopic dermatitis  (after the age of six).

Exposure to parabens like n-butylparaben and ethylparaben was found to be linked with an elevated risk for developing very early-onset atopic dermatitis without any remission. In children without a history of maternal atopic dermatitis, the influence of both parabens was found to be predominant  and independent of children's gender.

The link was specifically prominent in children without a history of maternal atopic dermatitis. This demonstrated that children without a genetic predisposition are highly vulnerable to exposure to paraben. Thus, prenatal parabens exposure can escalate the risk of atopic dermatitis.