The long hours and the chemicals used in perms and hairsprays may be putting hairdressers at risk of producing small babies.
When Swedish researchers compared more than 3000 hairdressers with a similar number of women from the general population, they found that hairdressers gave birth more often to infants that were small for dates.
Moreover, a higher percentage of the children born to hairdressers had a major malformation – 2.8 vs 2.1 per cent (Occup Environ Med, 2002; 59: 517-22).