United States – Air pollution is known to have adverse effects on human health: new research reveals that it may lower the chances of IVF giving birth to a baby.
Study Findings
Choice of the two arms reduces the chance of a live birth by about 40 percent for women heavily exposed to particle pollution 14 days before the collection of eggs for IVF compared to the least exposed, researchers said, as reported by HealthDay.
“These findings suggest that pollution negatively affects the quality of the eggs, not just the early stages of pregnancy, which is a distinction that has not been previously reported,” as quoted by Dr. Sebastian Leathersich, a gynecologist at the King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women in Subiaco, Australia.
IVF involves the use of a woman’s eggs that are then joined with sperm from a man in a laboratory. The resultant embryo is then implanted back to a woman for further development.
IVF Process and Study Details
In total, for this study, over 1,800 patients who underwent 3,700 FTCs within eight years in Perth, Australia, were enrolled.
The levels of air pollutants were observed at 24 hours, two weeks, four weeks and three months prior to the Retrieval of the eggs to establish how pollution influences the chances of IVF.
The strongest effect of PM10 particulate pollution for pregnant women reduced the probability of delivering a live born child by 38%, according to the study. PM10 is defined by particles that have a diameter of 10 micrometers at the most, and most of them are dust, pollen, and mold.
They also determined that high exposure to finer PM2. 5 The amount of particle pollution usually emitted through automobile fumes and other industrial processes predicted a lower likelihood of live birth.
Implications for Public Health
Investigators also pointed out, however, that the air quality during the study was overall excellent, yet this presented a negative effect of air pollution. PM10 and PM2.5 levels transgressed WHO’s guidelines on an average of only 0.4%, and the students used 4.5% of the study days to go through the different sections of the course.
“Climate change and pollution remain the greatest threats to human health, and human reproduction is not immune to this,” Leathersich said. “Even in a part of the world with exceptional air quality, where very few days exceed the internationally accepted upper limits for pollution, there is a strong negative correlation between the amount of air pollution and the live birth rate in frozen embryo transfer cycles. Minimizing pollutant exposure must be a key public health priority.”
Work was presented on Sunday at the meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam.
“This important study highlights a significant link between air pollution and lower IVF success rates, with a notable reduction in live births associated with higher particulate matter exposure before oocyte retrieval. These findings emphasize the need for ongoing attention to environmental factors in reproductive health,” Dr. Anis Feki, the society’s chair-elect, said in a news release, as reported by HealthDay.