Iraq is one of the countries that have suffered from decades of heavy conflict, industrial activity, and little environmental regulation. As a result, notable environmental degradation has occurred. Urban environments, in particular, suffer severely from air pollution, which may be affecting reproductive health outcomes .This study examined the environmental pollution rates and infertility rates in 5 large urban areas in Iraq from 2019- 2023 .A cross-sectional ecological study was conducted across five large Iraqi cities. Air pollution data were obtained from monitoring stations and included PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, and O3 measurements. Infertility rates were obtained from hospital records and fertility clinics. Statistical analysis was conducted employing Pearson correlation coefficients and multiple regression models .Overall, we found strong positive relationships between air pollution and infertility rates in both men (r=0.73, p<0.001) and women (r=0.68, p<0.001) with respect to PM2.5 concentrations. NO2 levels were also associated with decreased sperm quality parameters (r=-0.61, p<0.01). In areas where PM2.5 concentrations were >50 μg/m3, the infertility rates were 34% higher than those in areas with lower PM2.5 concentrations. Higher air pollution levels in urban Iraqi cities show associations with reproductive health outcomes. Meaning, there is an urgent need to address environmental health and policy reform in Iraq.
Fertility is a fundamental function of reproductive health that is under the control of different hormones, cytokines, and growth factors. Transforming growth factor superfamily is a group of cytokines necessary for blastocyst implantation as they regulate endometrial stromal cell proliferation, and promote embryonic adherence to the receptive endometrium. Hyaluronic acid molecule (HA) is a long, unbranched polysaccharide that plays a delicate function in reproduction. Hyaluronic acid regulates gametogenesis, folliculogenesisi, and implantation, thereby was oroposed to improve the rate of successful pregnancy.This study is a prospective clinical trial that includes 80 infertile Iraqi women aged (18-40 years) scheduled for fresh ICSI program. The study sample had been divided into 2 groups based on the type of intervention performed on the day of oocytes retrieval. The Hyaluronic acid group and the control group. For each participant, twice measurement of the serum level of transforming growth factor were done , the first measure was done on day of oocytes retrieval, while the second measure was performed on day of embryo transfer. A comparative statistic was made to examine the effect of hyaluronic acid intrauterine wash on the serum level of transforming growth factor and pregnancy rate.Hyaluronic acid intrauterine wash exerts a significant reduction in transforming growth factor serum level, and a significant improvement in the pregnancy outcome compared to the control group.
The effect of maternal body mass index (BMI) on fertility outcomes in women undergoing in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles has been extensively evaluated and the results of these studies have shown a lot of controversial issues. Folate is a naturally occurring type of vitamin B9 crucial for reproductive health. 65 infertile couples were subjected to intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles. Both primary and secondary types of infertility were involved, with different causes. The mean plasma folate of all infertile women was 12.71±6.52, with pregnant 11.60±5.57 and non-pregnant 11.74±8.80; with no significant difference in mean plasma folate between them. Moreover, the means of follicular fluid folate of all infertile women, pregnant women, and non-pregnant women were 8.00±5.39, 7.84±4.68, and 8.39±6.19 respectively. There was no significant statistical difference in mean follicular fluid folate between pregnant and non-pregnant women (p=0.719). Also, both plasma folate and follicular fluid folate were not significantly correlated to oocyte and embryo characteristics. Although plasma folate was higher in obese than normal and overweight women, the difference did not reach statistical significance. It appears that the correlation among maternal BMI, folate level and fertility outcomes in women undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles are still controversial and much research work is needed to figure out such complex interaction among these variables.
Background: One of the major concerns among the male reproductive health is the inability to achieve parenthood even after regular unprotected intercourse. The efficiency of the sperm selection techniques is expressed as the concen-tration of spermatozoa with normal motility. Discontinuous density gradient centrifugation (DGC) method widely used over the last decade due to effec-tiveness and reproducibility in recovering most motile sperm, which separates sperm based on their motility, size, and density differential. Glutathione act as an amino acid donor during spermatogenesis. If the levels of glutathione are too low during spermatogenesis, the number of mature and morphologically normal spermatozoa generated will be decreased. Objectives:The aim of this study was to assess the beneficial role of TAD 600mg Glutathione combined with DGC technique for activation of human sperm of asthenozoospermic, oligozoospermic and normozoospermic subjects compared with the DGC technique alone. Patients, Materials and Methods:Sixty males were involved in this study, di-vided into three groups, (twenty asthenozoospermic, Twenty oligozoospermic and twenty normozoospermic subjects)during their attendance to the Infertility Clinic at High Institute for Infertility Diagnosis and Assisted Reproductive Tech-nologies; Al-Nahrain University. Semen samples were obtained, and seminal fluid analysis was assessed. Each semen sample was divided into three parts. The first part prepared as in vitro sperm characterization before activation, the second part using density gradient centrifugation technique, while the last part prepared using density gradient centrifugation combined with TAD 600mg Glu-tathione. Results: After in vitro sperm activation for asthenozoospermic, oligozoospermic and normozoospermic samples a significant increase was observed in the sperm function parameters including sperm concentration, motility and morphological-ly normal sperm percentage as compared to pre-activation using combined tech-niques (density gradient centrifugation and TAD 600mg Glutathione) as com-pared to DGC technique alone. Conclusions:TAD 600mg Glutathione combined to the DGC technique was found to give higher significant results on sperm function parameters (sperm concen-tration, motility and morphology) when using a low quality of semen samples such as decreased sperm motility as compared with DGC technique alone.
Background: Tannery work share exposure to solvents and chemicals , which has been linked with inverse pregnancy and fertility outcomes in human being as reported in some studies . Objective: The current study aimed to through some light on the harmful pollutant chemicals effect on tannery workers reproductive health. Literature in this portion are rare in Iraq, so it had been tested the hypotheses that leather workers suffered from male infertility parameters due to the continuous exposure to chemicals that used in this industry. Subjects, Materials and Methods: This study included 60 subjects can divided into 2 groups: 30 males as study group and 30 males as control group, the period of study was between October 2014 to April 2016, the samples were taken from tanneries workers from various governorates of Iraq. Results: The data clearly showed a significant infertility parameters among these workers represented by low total sperm number, low sperm activity the significance levels were within the value of P ≤0.05 accompanied with a significant high seminal fructose. Conclusion: The main conclusion was that chronic exposure to these chemicals in tannery workers especially Cr VI and N,N-dimethyle form amide may cause male infertility parameters.