Key points
- Employers can help keep workers and their families safe by taking steps to protect them from reproductive hazards.
- Reproductive hazards can impact the hormones, sexual function, fertility, and pregnancies of workers.
Healthy is good for business
Healthy workers are more productive than sick workers. Showing your workers that you care can improve morale and employee retention. Improving safety and health at your workplace can also save your company money.
Research shows that successful safety and health systems reduce the costs of injury and illness, with a high return on investment.
All workers are impacted
Regardless of sex or stage of reproduction, all workers can be affected by reproductive hazards. Workers can also carry chemicals home on the skin, hair, clothes, and shoes. Some of these can harm other people in their households.
Many chemicals in the workplace have not been tested to see if they can cause reproductive problems. Laws for workplace safety and health are intended to protect average workers. They do not always protect workers' reproductive health and the health of their families.
Pregnant and breastfeeding workers
Although most employees are able to safely perform their jobs throughout pregnancy, worker safety can sometimes be different for pregnant workers.
Current occupational exposure limits were set based on studies performed in non-pregnant adults. There are many reasons these limits might not protect a pregnant person or fetus.
Pregnancy can cause some chemicals, like some metals, to be absorbed into the bloodstream more easily. As their body changes, a pregnant worker may find that personal protective equipment (like some respirator types) no longer fits correctly.
Changes in pregnant workers' immune system, lung capacity, and even ligaments can alter their risk for injury or illness.
Some chemical exposures are riskier for an unborn baby than an adult, due to its rapid development and smaller relative size. For most chemicals, we don't have good information on what levels of exposure might harm a fetus.
If an employee is breastfeeding, think about what exposures can get into breast milk. Encourage your employees to talk to their doctors about their workplace exposures. Keep in mind that hazards can be different for someone who is breastfeeding or pregnant.
How you can keep your workers healthy and safe
Identify hazards in your workplace
Some workplace hazards are obvious, like machinery that can cause injury or chemicals that can be poisonous. Other hazards include stress, working long hours, working night shifts, standing or sitting for long periods of time, and noise. Once you have identified the hazards in your workplace, you can start thinking of ways to make your workplace safer.
- Checking your workplace to make sure there are no serious hazards
- Training your employees in safe work practices
- Providing employees with needed equipment and safety gear
- Understanding your responsibilities as an employer
Make a plan
Think about what jobs in your company could be hazardous to reproductive health and share this information with employees. Offer them options to avoid tasks involving reproductive hazards while they are trying to conceive, pregnant, or breastfeeding. If an employee cannot completely avoid a reproductive hazard on the job, try to reduce it where possible.
Learn about your responsibilities towards pregnant and breastfeeding workers, including:
Create a smoke-free workplace
Secondhand smoke can harm reproductive health and fertility in both men and women. Secondhand smoke also can harm a fetus if a pregnant person regularly breathes it.
Request a Health Hazard Evaluation
If you want to make your workplace safer but don't know where to start, NIOSH can help. The Health Hazard Evaluation Program helps employees, unions, and employers learn whether health hazards are present at their workplace and recommends ways to reduce hazards and prevent work-related illness. Evaluations are done at no cost to the employees, unions, or employers.
Information on specific workplace reproductive hazards
Learn more about the potential reproductive health hazards in your workplace:
Resources
Supporting Nursing Moms at Work: Employer Solutions. Office on Women's Health.
Occupational Exposures and Reproductive Health: Grajewski B, Coble J, Frazier L, McDiarmid M. Birth Defects Res B Dev Reprod Toxicol 2005;74:157-163.