A growing number of studies show that the environmental factors and lifestyle habits of pregnant women play an important role in the health of their child. But how about the semen quality of young men? Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, showed two years ago that only 38% of Swiss men had semne parameters above the thresholds set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for fertile men. Epidemiologists from the Institut de recherche en santé, environnement et travail (IRSET, Rennes, France), in collaboration with the UNIGE team analyzed the potential impact of endocrine disruptors on semen quality of men whose mothers were working at the early stages of their pregnancy. Their results, published in the journal Human Reproduction, show that men who have been exposed in utero to products known to contain endocrine disruptors are twice more likely to have semen volume and total sperm count per ejaculation below the reference values set by the WHO.