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Heavy physical work could reduce women's fertility
There are many reasons why couples with children do not succeed. For example, ongoing stress reduces the chances of getting pregnant. Obviously, even heavy physical work and night shift work can reduce the likelihood. Because these activities affect the egg cell quality and number of women - and thus possibly their fertility.
Effects of heavy physical work and shift services
It has long been known that people who do heavy physical work and shiftworkers routinely endanger their health. It is new that women among them are more likely to have problems getting children. But exactly about this relationship report US researchers in the journal "Occupational and Environmental Medicine".
Heavy physical work and night shift work, according to a new study, affect the ova quality and number of women and thus possibly their fertility. (Image: Kostia / fotolia.com) Egg quality and number is affected
Thus, heavy physical work and night shift work will affect the ova quality and number of women and thus possibly their fertility. According to the scientists, this effect is particularly pronounced in overweight and older women.
Women who want to have children should be aware that heavy lifting and shift work at night impairs female fertility.
Like the researchers around Lidia Minguez-Alarcón of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, previous studies have shown that a woman's working conditions affect her fertility.
However, it has not yet been investigated which processes would be directly impaired in the body.
Effects particularly strong in overweight women
The current study looked at women who had decided to take fertility treatment because they naturally did not get pregnant. In addition, the subjects had to provide detailed information on their working conditions in a questionnaire.
According to the researchers, the data showed that in women who lift heavily during fertility treatment, fewer oocytes mature in the ovaries than in women who work predominantly while sitting or doing less physically hard work.
In addition, they found that fewer of these eggs were fully mature. Their stock of fertilizable oocytes also seemed to be smaller overall. However, this relationship was not statistically clear.
The reported effects were particularly pronounced in obese and overweight women and women over 37 years of age. At night shift workers, the yield of mature oocytes was also lower than that of women working shifts during the day. The working conditions had no effect on the hormone content.
Disruptions of the biological clock
It is still unclear which causes underlie the observed differences. The researchers suspect that disruption of the biological clock could be involved.
According to the scientists, their results would have immediate clinical relevance, as fewer mature oocytes will result in fewer oocytes producing a healthy embryo.
Further investigations would now have to show if the effects are reversible and if so, how long that will take. The experts do not yet know if the results are also true for women who have become naturally pregnant.
No fundamentally new findings
As reported by the dpa news agency, the study provides solid results for Georg Döhmen, reproductive physician and board member of the German Society for Reproductive Medicine (DGRM), but does not provide any fundamentally new findings.
Previous research has also shown that physical stress affects fertility, especially as one grows older and overweight.
"But you have to keep in mind that the causes of limited fertility are usually multifactorial, because several things come together," said the expert. Tobacco use is one of the most important harmful factors because smoking reduces fertility.
Sport and healthy nutrition, on the other hand, promoted fertility, in men as well as women, according to the physician.
Live healthy and reduce stress
It is also conceivable that the level of education and related lifestyle factors could explain the results. The level of education among the women examined who did heavy physical labor and worked at night was lower, according to the dpa report.
"The extent to which this may play a role, the study does not answer." Döhmen recommends that women who come to him with an unfulfilled desire to have children in the fertility center to live largely healthy and reduce stress, without being completely disconnected from normal life.
"If you apply too many rules, it can also cause stress and then be counterproductive," said the reproductive physician. (Ad)