Background: Female reproductive system perturbations may decrease a woman's likelihood of conceiving and carrying her baby to term, influence the future life course of a viable infant, and may also reflect and have an impact on her own gynecological and general health and well-being. This chapter surveys effects of persistent organic compounds (POCs) and other less persistent but often pervasive bioactive organic compounds (BOCs) on these health outcomes. Objectives: To present an overview that highlights evidence gathered from studies and reviews, and to provide readers with background to interpret results of future studies. Results: This chapter provides an overview of human BOC and POC research methods, issues, and findings pertaining to women's reproductive and offspring's developmental effects of exposure. Research gaps and additional information resources are also highlighted. Discussion: Human evidence is mounting for adverse intrauterine exposure effects of (1) polychlorinated biphenyls (particularly estrogenic congeners) on lowered birth weight; (2) phthalates on testicular dysgenesis syndrome; (3) various solvents on fetal loss; (4) smoking on altered reproductive hormone levels, lowered fertility, fecundity, birth weights, and menopausal age, and increased stillbirths, cleft lip malformations, and maternal (diastolic) hypertension; and (5) pesticides on childhood leukemia. There are strikingly few studies of other BOCs and POCs and reproductive outcomes, considering how many of these compounds are prevalent and that their potential effects and comorbidities may be severe with impacts across the life span. Conclusions: Evidence of adverse female reproductive and developmental effects is mounting for some BOCs and POCs but is sparse for many others. Well-designed longitudinal human studies are needed.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.