 the objective of this study was to investigate a broad range of adverse health outcomes and their potential association to wood preservative used in daycare centers . 
 this article focuses on reproductive effects . 
 a sample of 221 exposed teachers was provided by the employer 's liability insurers . 
 a comparison group ( n = 189 ) insured by the same two organizations was recruited from nonexposed daycare centers . in a face - to - face interview , 
 job history and reproductive history of 398 female teachers were ascertained . 
 data on exposure were provided , including measurements on concentration of pentachlorophenol ( pcp ) and lindane in wood panels , and of pcp , lindane , polychlorinated dibenzo - p - dioxins and dibenzofurans in indoor air . 
 an exposure matrix based on individual job history , independent exposure information from each center , and reproductive history was set up with regard to the vulnerable time windows for each pregnancy . using this approach , 49 exposed and 507 nonexposed pregnancies were identified , including 32 exposed and 386 nonexposed live births . for subgroup analyses 
 the observations were restricted to independent pregnancies , excluding multiple and consecutive births . 
 the data were analyzed with linear regression techniques , taking confounders into account . 
 the crude median difference between exposed and nonexposed was 175 g in birthweight and 2 cm in length . 
 controlling for confounders , the results show a significantly reduced but weight ( p = 0.04 ) and length ( p = 0.02 ) in exposed pregnancies , even after restricting the data to independent pregnancies and pregnancies for which data could be validated from the mother 's health cards . 
 these differences were not explained by differences in gestational age indicating that a toxic effect , which could cause small - for date newborns , might have affected the fetus.imagesfigure 1.figure 2.figure 3 . 
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