ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the long-term consequences of changes within the uterine environment during pregnancy, including nutritional, hormonal, pharmaceutical, and other environmental factors. Teratogens cause fetal programming that can result in severe birth defects. However, linking exposure with fetal programming that results in long-latency effects is more challenging. When the discovery that developmental exposure to an estrogen pharmaceutical created long-latency developmental effects existed, it opened the door to the exploration of fetal programming. Additional sources range from natural variation in endogenous fetal estrogens to exogenous exposure to chemicals in the environment with hormonal activity, termed endocrine disruptors, among a variety of other pharmaceuticals that are just beginning to be scrutinized for potential fetal programming. Teratogens cause severe fetal programming that results in malformations present at birth, but there are probably other persistent changes that are subtler and therefore not attributed to the exposure.
