The overall aim of this study was to describe positive and adverse reproductive outcomes of employed women. The purposes of the study were three-fold: (1) to explore differences in adverse pregnancy outcomes between those women who were exposed to lifting, standing, and noise during their first, second, and third pregnancies and those women who did not have exposure to these potential hazards; (2) to explore the differences in normal pregnancy outcomes and adverse pregnancy outcomes in women handling chemotherapeutic agents and women not handling chemotherapeutic agents using an algorithm considering the outcomes of prior pregnancies; and (3) to explore the differences in normal pregnancy outcomes and adverse pregnancy outcomes in women with multiple potential hazardous exposures and women not exposed to these potential hazards while adjusting for confounding variables including age, parity, smoking, alcohol, and birth control use.

In this retrospective cross-sectional study data were obtained from a questionnaire entitled, "Women, the Workplace, and Health", which was developed primarily for this study. The questionnaires were distributed to 2200 subjects. A total of 663 subjects returned the questionnaire; 205 oncology nurses, 226 registered nurses, and 232 female university employees.

A total of 1133 pregnancies were reported by respondents. Of the 421 subjects reporting pregnancies, 191 reported adverse pregnancy outcomes. Adverse pregnancy outcomes were defined as infant deaths, birth defects, developmental delays, ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, stillbirths, and infertility. Without adjustment for parity or other confounding variables, the oncology nurses reported significantly more birth defects than the university employee group (F = 3.77, p = 0.02).

Logistic regression was used to determine the model for further study of occupational hazards and adverse pregnancies. The interaction of chemotherapy and radiation was associated with total adverse pregnancy outcomes for pregnancy #2, O.R. = 2.91 (95% Cl = 1.18, 7.23). Radiation was associated with infant deaths in pregnancy #2, O.R. 33.2 (95% Cl = 1.81, 610.1) and in pregnancy #3, O.R. = 14.5 (95% Cl = 1.08, 195.1). Radiation was also associated with total adverse pregnancy outcomes for pregnancy #3, O.R. = 5.27 (95% Cl = 1.23, 22.68) and with stillbirths/miscarriages for pregnancy #3, O.R. = 5.44 (95% Cl = 1.11, 26.55). These findings should be cautiously considered due to the small cell sizes. Further study is needed to determine if the significance found in this study would hold with a larger sample size.