“Cocktail” of environmental chemicals and early reproductive outcomes of IVF: The insight from paternal and maternal exposure

Abstract

BackgroundHumans are exposed to various chemicals, including organophosphate esters (OPEs), phthalates (PAEs), and phenols. The effects on early reproductive outcomes of in vitro fertilization (IVF) remain unclear. MethodsWe recruited 192 women and 157 men who underwent IVF treatment. A total of forty-nine urinary chemicals were detected, including six OPEs, fifteen PAEs, six parabens, two chlorophenols, nine bisphenols, five benzophenones, and six synthetic phenolic antioxidants. We examined the individual and joint effects of parental chemical exposure on early reproductive outcomes. ResultsWe found that certain chemicals were associated with early reproductive outcomes in Poisson regression models. For example, urinary diphenyl phosphate was negatively associated with high-quality embryos in both female (β: −0.12, 95%CI: −0.17, −0.07) and male partners (β: −0.09, 95%CI: −0.15, −0.03). A negative association was found between mixed chemicals and high-quality embryos in Bayesian kernel machine regression, weighted quantile sum regression (β: −0.34, 95%CI: −0.60, −0.07), and quantile-based g-computation model (β: −0.69, 95%CI: −1.34, −0.05) among female partners. Paternal mixture exposure was not associated with early reproductive outcomes. ConclusionsOur results indicated that increased exposure to environmental chemicals was associated with adverse early reproductive outcomes of IVF, especially female partners.