Abigail Mancuso
Environmental pollutants are present in many aspects of everyday life. Exposures to common household products, such as food packaging and cookware, may affect reproductive health. Many of these environmental toxicants are known as "endocrine disrupting chemicals" because they can interfere with the body's hormone systems. Our study aims to create a guide that explains common sources of environmental toxicants and offer practical steps to reduce exposure. The investigators will evaluate how well participants understand this information and how consistently the intervention is maintained over time. To assess whether these changes reduce environmental pollutant exposure, the investigators will measure levels of two classes of toxicants within the urine and blood at the beginning, middle and end of the study in patients struggling with infertility that are planning in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. The investigators will also measure the same chemicals in follicular fluid (fluid which surrounds developing eggs in the ovary) and seminal fluid (fluid which surrounds the sperm in semen) and compare these levels to samples from similar patients who did not receive the education or make environmental changes. The goal of this project is to determine whether simple changes to reduce exposure to environmental pollutants can lower chemical levels of toxicants in the body and whether this may ultimately impact outcomes for patients undergoing in vitro fertilization.
Inclusion criteria: \- Unexplained infertility diagnosis (no identifiable male or female causes to infertility) Exclusion criteria: * Female age 38 years and older * Male age 45 and older * Diagnosis of diminished ovarian reserve * Diagnosis of PCOS/PMOS * Smoking or drug use in either male and/or female partner * BMI \>40 in either partner * Patients using donor oocytes/donor sperm/donor embryos
All patients will be provided education on environmental pollutants and provide practical steps to reduce exposure.