According to a recent national survey, 12 percent of the reproductive age population in the United States, or 7.3 million couples, report difficulty conceiving or carrying a pregnancy to term, or both of these problems. The largest reported increase in infertility is in women under age 25. Although there is still much to learn about environmental factors, exposures that may interfere with fertility include cigarette smoke, DES exposure in the womb (some women took the drug DES to prevent miscarriages from the 1930s to 1971) and health challenges such as endometriosis. Exposure to solvents such as formaldehyde, toluene, perchloroethylene (dry cleaning fluid) and pesticides also has been linked to fertility problems in women.

Resources

Challenged Conceptions: Environmental Chemicals and Fertility

Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s Infertility and the Environment Peer-Reviewed Analysis

Environmental Health Bulletin: Body of Evidence--Reproductive Health and the Environment

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s The Effects of Workplace Hazards on Female Reproductive Health report

Reproductive Health Technologies Project’s Environmental Toxins and Fertility resources

University of California San Francisco and Collaborative on Health and the Environment Summit on Environmental Challenges to Reproductive Health and Fertility 2007

Vallombrosa Consensus Statement on Environmental Contaminants and Human Fertility Compromise