Blog
01/02/2009
Common chemicals can affect Fertility
Researchers have found that exposure to a type of chemical found in everyday items such as clothing, carpets, and food packaging may adversely affect women's fertility, delaying the time it takes them to become pregnant.
The higher the concentrations of these chemicals -- (PFCs or perfluorinated chemicals) -- in the women's blood samples, the more likely the women were to take more than 12 months to get pregnant.
"In our study, 75% of the women had concentrations that were associated with a longer waiting time [to pregnancy]," says study researcher Jorn Olsen, MD, PhD, professor and chair of epidemiology at the University of California School of Public Health. Olsen heads the Danish National Birth Cohort at the University of Aarhus in Denmark.
Researchers took blood samples from 1,240 women during their first pregnancy visit, when they were about four to 14 weeks pregnant, and measured concentrations of the chemicals. The researchers asked the women how long it took to become pregnant; they defined infertility as a "time to pregnancy" of longer than 12 months or the need for infertility treatment to become pregnant.
Be the first to comment on this article