reproduc tive health problems 325
Reproductive Health Problems
Toxic chemicals can damage our ability to give birth to
healthy children. Reproductive health problems affect
women of childbearing age most, but they can also
affect men and women at any time in their lives.
Some chemicals cause miscarriages or sterility
(inability to have children) in men or women.
They do this by interfering with hormones, the
natural chemicals the body makes to control
growth and other processes such as women’s
monthly bleeding and reproduction or men’s
production of sperm. Other chemicals act just
like hormones when they get into our bodies.
They can confuse our natural hormones by sending
false signals. For this reason, these chemicals are sometimes
called hormone disruptors.
How reproductive hormones work
Female hormones called estrogen and progesterone cause the changes in a
girl’s body known as puberty. They cause her ovaries to release one egg every
month, stop her monthly bleeding during pregnancy, and after childbirth they
cause her breasts to make milk. Hormones also determine how the baby grows
inside its mother’s womb.
Toxic chemicals disrupt hormones
Chemicals that are hormone disruptors can cause girls
to start monthly bleeding early, have irregular bleeding,
or have no bleeding at all. Disrupting the normal
functions of hormones can also cause women to have
a pregnancy start growing outside the womb, a very
dangerous problem that can kill the woman.
The health of
future generations
depends on
protecting
ourselves today.
Even small amounts of some chemicals, such as PCBs,
dioxins, and some plastics (see pages 323 and 340), can
cause serious damage to reproductive health. Many of these
chemicals cannot be seen or smelled. They may not cause
problems at the time of exposure, but still cause serious
health problems many years later or in the next generation.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012