A Review of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes and Formaldehyde Exposure in Human and Animal Studies

We examine the potential for reproductive and developmental effects from formaldehyde exposure. Formaldehyde is unlikely to reach the reproductive system in humans in concentrations sufficient to cause damage since it is rapidly metabolized and detoxified upon contact with the respiratory tract. While there are effects seen in in vitro studies or after injection, there is little evidence of reproductive or developmental toxicity in animal studies under exposure levels and routes relevant to humans. Most of the epidemiology studies examined spontaneous abortion and showed some evidence of increased risk (meta-relative risk=1.4, 95% CI 0.9–2.1). We found evidence of reporting biases and publication biases among the epidemiology studies and when these biases were taken into account, we found no evidence of increased risk of spontaneous abortion among workers exposed to formaldehyde (meta-relative risk=0.7, 95% CI 0.5–1.0). The small number of studies on birth defects, low birth weight, and infertility among formaldehyde workers; the limitations in the design of these studies; and the inconsistent findings across these studies make it difficult to draw conclusions from the epidemiology data alone. However, information from experimental studies and studies of metabolism indicate reproductive impacts are unlikely at formaldehyde exposures levels observed in the epidemiology studies.