Associations between paternal urinary phthalate metabolite concentrations and reproductive outcomes among couples
L E Dodge1, P L Williams2, M A Williams3
1Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Introduction:
Limited evidence suggests that male exposure to ubiquitous environmental phthalates may result in poor reproductive outcomes among female partners.
Methods:
This analysis included male-female couples undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) and/or intrauterine insemination (IUI). We evaluated associations between the geometric mean of paternal specific gravity-adjusted urinary phthalate concentrations prior to the female partners' cycle and fertilization, embryo quality, implantation, and live birth using generalized linear mixed models.
Results:
Two-hundred eighteen couples underwent 211 IVF and 195 IUI cycles. Trends were observed between paternal urinary mono-3-carboxypropyl phthalate (MCPP; P=0.01) and mono(carboxyoctyl) phthalate (MCOP; P=0.01) and decreased odds of implantation. MCPP and MCOP were also associated with decreased odds of live birth following IVF (P=0.01 and P=0.04, respectively), and monobutyl phthalate above the first quartile was significantly associated with decreased odds of live birth following IUI (P=0.04). However, most urinary phthalate metabolites were not associated with these reproductive outcomes.
Conclusion:
Selected phthalates were associated with decreased odds of implantation and live birth.
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