• Dads' jobs linked to birth defect risks

    By MyHealthNewsDaily Staff

    Certain jobs held by men in the months before they conceive a child may increase the risk of birth defects, a new study suggests.

    Researchers analyzed information from more than 14,000 fathers whose jobs fit into at least one of 63 categories.

    The study found certain jobs were linked with an increased risk of multiple types of birth defects in children. These jobs included: mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists; artists; photographers and photo processors; food service workers; landscapers and groundskeepers; hairdressers and makeup artists; office and administration support workers; sawmill operatives; those working with oil and gas; those working in chemical industries; printers; those operating cranes and diggers; and drivers.

    The researchers did not have information about chemicals or agents the men may have been exposed to at their jobs that could increase the risk of birth defects in their children, and so could not determine whether the jobs were indeed the cause of the defects.

    However, the researchers pointed out  that occupations in which workers are commonly exposed to solvents — such as artists, chemical workers, pharmacists, chemical engineers, painters, dry cleaners, printers and plumbers — were associated with an increased risk of eye, heart and intestinal defects, and oral clefts.

    The findings mean that these jobs that should be investigated further for their potential to cause birth defects, the researchers said. The results can also help researchers figure out what types of chemicals commonly used in certain jobs might increase the risk of birth defects, they said.

    Among children born in the U.S., birth defects occur in about 1 in 33 babies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Andrew Olshan, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and colleagues obtained the job histories of just under 10,000 U.S. dads who had a child with one or more birth defects born between 1997 and 2004, and job histories of just over 4,000 dads whose kids did not have birth defects. The jobs included in the study were those held by the father for at least the three months before conception and the first month of pregnancy.

    The researchers classified the jobs into 63 groups, based on their assumed exposure to chemicals or other potential hazards.

    The researchers examined the link between these jobs and more than 60 birth defects.

    Nearly a third of job types were not associated with any increased risk of birth defects. These included architects and designers; health-care professionals; dentists; firefighters; fishermen; car assembly workers; entertainers; smelters and foundry workers; stonemasons and glass blowers; train drivers; soldiers; and commercial divers.

    Jobs associated with specific types of defect included artists (associated with defects of the mouth, eyes and ears, gut, limbs, and heart), photographers and photo processors (associated with cataracts, glaucoma and absence of or insufficient eye tissue); and landscapers and groundskeepers (associated with gut abnormalities).

    The study is published today (July 17) in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

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  • Time to think of health costs to IVF babies, bioethicist says

    By Art Caplan, Ph.D.

    An article just published in the highly respected journal Fertility and Sterility ought to give anyone thinking about using “test tube” baby technology pause. A review of 124,000 children born through two very common infertility treatments -- in vitro fertilization, creating embryos in a dish and transferring them to a womb and ICSI, in which a single sperm is injected directly into an egg -- showed large increase in the risk of having a child with a birth defect. The risk was 37 percent higher than that seen in children made the old fashioned way. That is a huge number.

    There is some danger that this message will not get heard by those thinking about using infertility treatments or considering putting off having a baby until later in life figuring they can use IVF if they need to. 

    Celebrities continue to appear on television gab shows proclaiming that they used infertility treatment to have a child and that it was a breeze. Stories about Nadya Suleman and other super-multiple pregnancies rarely mention the grim facts about disability and premature death that accompany these morally dubious pregnancies. Too many clinics providing reproductive services for cash fail to emphasize the risks faced by kids made technologically.

    I am not anti-technology when it comes to making babies. The position of the Catholic Church and some social conservatives in opposing the creation of life with a technological assist when infertility prevents a married couple from reproduction strikes me as cruel and anti-life.  And those who worry about turning baby-making into manufacturing when it is done in a clinic seem to me to have a very optimistic view about the circumstances that accompany the creation of a huge number of kids when sex is used.

    That said, the large risk factor now on the table needs to be a key part of how everyone thinks about making babies in medical settings. The authors of the study say they do not know why the risk is so large. And it has taken far too long for this question to get asked. We need to be sure that long-term monitoring of children born by means of infertility treatment is routine and that more research is done into the causes of health problems for kids who cannot make choices about facing risk. 

    Infertility treatments have brought a great deal of joy to many.  But, the price is high -- so high that we need to be sure it is a key element in thinking about using these treatments.

    What do you think? Tell us on Facebook.

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    The twin babies of an American woman, born abroad through in-vitro fertilization, are being denied U.S. citizenship because there is no proof that either the egg donor or sperm donor is American. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.