Module 3: Toxicology - Section 18: Reproductive Health Disorders in the Workplace
TOX 18.1 Objectives and Activities
 

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this module you should:
  • be familiar with the known reproductive hazards for women and men;
  • know how to do a reproductive risk assessment;
  • be able to institute a clinical and laboratory assessment of a worker exposed to reproductive hazards and where indicated, recommend placement.
South African laws, regulations and codes of practice pertaining to reproductive health will be dealt with in Block 7.

This introductory page contains links to other pages in this section. These are included for your convenience, both for reference and for revision purposes. It is strongly recommended, however, that you first access the material in its logical sequence, indicated by the "Next Page" link above.

ACTIVITIES:

  1. A lecture will provide the overview. Please revise these notes.
  2. Please work through the exercise.

EXERCISES:

Exercise 1: You are the occupational health practitioner at a local clothing factory. Mrs B is 33 years old and she has worked at the factory for 16 years as a machinist. She visits the occupational health clinic, indicating that she and Mr B are very happy as she is 2 months pregnant. She is keen to take all possible precautions to ensure that there are no problems with this pregnancy and therefore came to see you. They have tried for years to have a baby and she had 2 previous spontaneous abortions at 8 and 10 weeks gestation. She is worried that her work environment, which is very stressful because of ongoing retrenchments, the introduction of the "just in-time" system as well as the daily quotas she has to meet.

Please explain how you will deal with the concerns raised by Mrs B.

(Answer)


Exercise 2: You have completed the detailed history (including occupational) and have done a clinical examination. You explain to Mrs B that you can find no obvious cause for concern but she is not reassured and asks to be changed to a different section of the factory.

Please explain how you will deal with her concerns and her request.

(Answer)


Exercise 3: During a follow-up visit you see Mr and Mrs B and you learn that he has been working at a battery manufacturing plant for 15 years. How will this information influence your further management of the concerns of the couple?

(Answer)

REFERENCES:

  1. La Dou J. Current Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Third Edition, The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. New York, 2004 pp 397-424.
  2. Health Hazards to Men, Women and Unborn. Health - Women’s Health - Pregnancy.http://www.city.ottawa.on.ca/city_services/yourhealth/women/pregnancy/health_hazard.
  3. Reproductive Health and Pregnancy. http://www.nohsc.gov.au/OHSInformation/NOHSCPublications/factsheets/reprd1.htm.
  4. Male and female reproductive health hazards in the workplace: Your health and safety at work. International Labour Organization http://www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/osh/rep/prod.htm.
  5. Jankovic John T. Workplace Reproductive Health Hazards. http://www.ms.ornl.gov/researchgroups/support/esh/Haz_to_Human_Reproduction.pdf.
  6. Levy Barry S and Wegman David H. Occupational Health. Recognizing and Preventing Work-Related Disease, Third Edition, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1995.
  7. The Effects of Workplace Hazards on Female Reproductive Health. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Publication No. 99-104, 1999 http://www.cdc.gov/niosh.
  8. Hoyer PB: Reproductive toxicology: Current and future directions [review]. Biochem Pharmacol 2001; 62:1557 [PMID:11755108].
  9. Moline JM, et al: Exposure to hazardous substances and male reproductive health: A research agenda [review]. Environ Health Perspect 2000; 108:803 [PMID: 11017884].
  10. Sallmen M. Exposure to lead and male fertility. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2001; 14:219 [PMID:11764848].
  11. Swan SH, et al: Geographic differences in semen quality of fertile US males. Env Health Perspect 2003; 111(2):414 [PMID:12676592].



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Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health (DOH) - Modules 3: Occupational Medicine & Toxicology (Basic) by Profs Mohamed Jeebhay and Rodney Ehrlich, Health Sciences UCT is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. Major contributors: Mohamed Jeebhay, Rodney Ehrlich, Jonny Myers, Leslie London, Sophie Kisting, Rajen Naidoo, Saloshni Naidoo. Source available from here. For any updates to the material, or more permissions beyond the scope of this license, please email healthoer@uct.ac.za or visit www.healthedu.uct.ac.za. Last updated Jan 2007.
Disclaimer note: Some resources and descriptions may be out-dated. For suggested updates and feedback, please contact healthoer@uct.ac.za.