Scope

Preconception and early pregnancy are vulnerable periods to environmental toxicants, nutritional deficiencies and social stressors. According to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) conceptual framework, early life environmental exposures have consequences throughout the life course and across generations. Initial work in this field pointed to the role of prenatal undernutrition, often resulting in low birthweight, in permanently shaping the offspring’s tissue structure, function, and metabolism. More recent evidence suggests that fetal programming may also affect the risk of several chronic diseases over the lifespan and provides mechanistic insights into how environmental factors may affect gene expression and disease processes. Reproductive epidemiologic research has made great contributions in terms of informing treatment approaches and policy making aimed at improving human reproductive health. A noteworthy example is periconceptional folic acid supplementation to prevent neural tube defects. While progress has been made in many areas, including advances in tools for measuring environmental toxicants and genotyping in reproductive health research, other issues such as social and racial disparities, translation of animal work to human studies, and insights on biological mechanisms underlying epidemiological observations remain and must be addressed.

Our intention is to make active and critical contributions to the science and policy discourses related to reproductive, perinatal and pediatric health. We welcome submissions focusing on cutting-edge research, controversial issues, and methodological limitations in the epidemiology of reproductive and perinatal health, including but not limited to: reproductive health issues such as conception, infertility, and reproductive hormone diseases, contraception and hormone supplementation safety including potential effects on reproductive cancers, as well as perinatal issues such as pregnancy complications, infections in pregnancy, maternal mortality, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and birth defects.

Please refer to the author guidelines for details on article types and the submission process.

Submission

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