The use of insect repellent by pregnant women has been implicated in an increasingly common male genetic defect – hypospadias.
The condition, which generally requires surgery to correct, is estimated to affect about one in every 500 boys, although this number had been growing.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“Signs of a link between exposure to insect repellents and a common congenital anomaly were reported by a team of epidemiologists in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
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“They found that women who gave birth to a son with the defect were more likely to have had used insect repellent in the early stages of pregnancy than those who gave birth to healthy babies.
“The researchers also found that while no single factor such as living near farmland, using garden pesticides or using fly sprays or ant powder caused a statistically significant increase in risk those women who ticked more than one of these boxes was at slightly higher risk.”