DES daughters, a group of women with increased susceptibility to cancer of the vagina and other reproductive organs because their mothers were given an estrogen medication, diethylstilbestrol (DES), from the 1940s through the 1960s to prevent miscarriage. Several other abnormalities have been reported among the DES daughters, including tissue that covers the cervix or a uterus that is too small to carry a pregnancy. Sons of women who took DES have an increased risk of undescended testes or other genital disorders.
