It found that many common chemicals can disrupt normal thyroid actions, affecting brain development in foetuses and young children. Calls are therefore being made for greater public health intervention to prevent such issues occurring.

Maternal thyroid hormones (TH) are vital for normal brain development in children and there have been many previous studies into their importance. They showed that even the smallest amount of disruption to TH in women while they are pregnant can affect cognitive development in babies.

Women who are exposed to high levels of air pollution during their pregnancy may be unknowingly increasing the risk of their babies developing asthma in childhood, according to a new study.

Research conducted by scientists at the University of British Columbia in Canada found that expectant mothers who live close to busy roads with high volumes of traffic are 25 per cent more likely to give birth to a child who is diagnosed with asthma before the age of five.

Reproductive health professionals say links between prenatal exposure to chemicals and poor health outcomes are increasingly evident.

Dramatic increases in exposure to toxic chemicals in the last four decades is threatening human reproduction and health, according to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), the first global reproductive health organization to take a stand on human exposure to toxic chemicals.

The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) supports World Environment Day (WED) on 5 June 2014.

It is a day on which the United Nations calls for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment - over time, it has evolved into a major global platform for public advocacy across many countries.

2014 has been designated by the UN as the ‘International Year of Small Island Developing States’ (SIDS) which WED will adopt as a theme in the broader context of climate change.

Today, Dr Jeanne Conry, PhD, FACOG, of Granite Bay, California, became President-Elect of FIGO at our XXII FIGO World Congress in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

Dr Conry's three-year term as President will begin in 2021, she has the distinguished honor of being the second woman to hold this position since FIGO was founded in 1954.