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Home › Articles › Conditions Affecting Conception and Pregnancy › Public Problem, Private Suffering

Public Problem, Private Suffering

The Issue of DES Daughters

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

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DES Effects
According to Mark A. Baugh, a clinical pharmacist from San Francisco, Calif., the physical effects of DES are many and can be very serious. "If taken during pregnancy, there is a real possibility of vaginal or cervical carcinoma in female offspring," he says. "This is where we get the term 'DES daughters.' DES is a synthetic estrogen and effects tissues sensitive to this hormone. Tissues with estrogen receptors are not only those you'd expect – breasts, ovary, uterus, cervix – but also the bone and kidneys. Even so, these are not the end of the list."

Braun shares that the exposure to this drug opens the door to many problems: physical, mental and emotional. "DES-exposed women face intimate injuries, medical obstacles and pharmaceutical denials," he says. "Reproductively, DES can hinder a woman's ability to naturally conceive and carry a child. Whether due to a deformed uterus, malformed eggs or the inability to prevent labor until the ninth month, the affects of DES on a woman's ability to have a child can cause her emotional, mental and physical anguish."

According to the DES Cancer Network, only 5 percent of all women diagnosed as DES daughters conceive without any medical intervention, and the rate of depression in women of DES exposure is seven times higher then those who have not been exposed.

"The physical aspects of being a DES daughter have been devastating," says Eliza Kantor of Bethesda, Md. "I've had several pregnancy disasters – an emergency ectopic and loss of two additional pregnancies. The emotional affects are hard to characterize. I feel like I have this special issue to always watch out for. The worst part is, they still don't know the overall affects on 'us'."


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