Vaginal spermicides and congenital disorders

Among 763 liveborn infants of white women who had obtained a vaginal spermicide in the ten months before conception, the prevalence of certain major congenital anomalies was 2.2%. The prevalence of such anomalies in a comparison group of 3,902 infants was 1.0%. The difference between these groups was due to an excess of limb-reduction deformities, neoplasms, syndromes associated with chromosomal abnormalities, and hypospadias in the infants whose mothers are presumed to have used vaginal spermicides. Pregnancies in women who had used vaginal spermicides ended in spontaneous abortion requiring hospitalization 1.8 times more commonly than did pregnancies in those who had not. Since a well-defined syndrome among babies with congenital disorders whose mothers used spermicides was not present, these results should be considered tentative until confirmed by other data.