Disorders of the Female Reproductive System and Developmental Disorders

Contrary to popular belief, the adverse effects of environmental chemicals on human reproduction are not a new problem but rather an old one rediscovered. Chemicals and toxins have been used since antiquity as abortifacients. The adverse reproductive effects of workplace exposure have been well documented since the industrial revolution. Careful recording of such events and their sequelae, as well as the results of accidental poisonings, constitutes the clinical core of reproductive toxicology and teratology. Over the years, clinicians have alerted the medical community to the reproductive hazards of toxic exposure. Although this surveillance is now supplemented by epidemiologic and animal studies, there is little doubt that the alert clinician will continue to be among the first to detect the reproductive hazards of toxic exposure. Clearly the aim of such observations is to reduce fetal loss, infant malformation, and infant debility.