ABSTRACT
The exposure of women workers to chemicals has been a peculiarly ignored phenomenon. The social perception that men have held the “dirty” jobs has not taken into account those female-intensive industries where the use of chemicals is likely to be the constant and accepted experience. Laboratory technicians work in chemical and health-related laboratories with a changing array of organic solvents; nurses and other health workers are exposed to anesthetic gases and sterilizing agents. Dry cleaners and beauticians also work in a chemical environment. The chemical nature of the substance probably governs its ability to reach the blastocyst. It is now believed that maternal blastocyst exchange mechanisms are carefully controlled by regulatory systems active at the level of the endometrium and the blastocyst. Determination of blastocyst-uterine relationships involves an evaluation of the action of maternally transmitted, pharmacologically active substances upon the blastocyst.
