Heavy Lifting, Working Nights Can Hamper Fertility, Says New Study

Women who work night shifts may find it harder to become pregnant, researchers have found.

According to the study, heavy lifting and work outside normal office hours could have a potential effect on a woman’s ability to conceive.

The US study, published in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal.

“Our study suggests that women who are planning pregnancy should be cognizant of the potential negative impacts that non-day shift and heavy lifting could have on their reproductive health,” said Lidia Mínguez-Alarcón, research fellow in the Department of Environmental Health and lead author of the study.

While previous studies have suggested a link between work schedule, physical factors on the job, and fecundity–the biologic capacity for reproduction — those studies didn’t directly measure biomarkers of fecundity such as levels of reproductive hormones or ovarian function, and therefore could only speculate on the possible mechanisms underlying the associations. The new study is the first to report associations between these biomarkers and occupational factors.

The researchers studied nearly 500 women seeking infertility treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) from 2004-2015, which allowed them to directly measure many biomarkers of fecundity that can’t be measured in women attempting to conceive naturally.

The researchers looked at several biomarkers of fecundity — including the number of antral follicles (small structures in the ovary that indicate the number of immature eggs remaining in the ovary); levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH); estrogen levels; and the number of mature eggs that are capable of developing into healthy embryos–and analyzed the association between these biomarkers and the physical demands and schedules of the women’s jobs, which the women reported on a questionnaire.

Moving or lifting heavy objects at work was inversely associated with both the number of antral follicles and the number of eggs among the women, the study found. Women who reported moving or lifting heavy loads at work had 8.8% fewer total eggs and 14.1% fewer mature eggs compared with women who reported never lifting or moving heavy objects at work. The inverse association between heavy lifting and mature egg yield was stronger among women who were overweight or obese and those age 37 or older.

Non-daytime schedules — including working at night or working rotating shifts — were also inversely related to egg yields.

The researchers didn’t find any association between occupational factors and either estrogen or FSH levels.

The mechanism by which moving or lifting heavy loads could affect egg quality is still unknown, the researchers said. As for how working non-day shifts may affect egg yields, the researchers speculated that it may have to do with circadian rhythm disruption.

“Our study is the first to show that occupational heavy lifting and non-day shifts may be adversely affecting egg production and quality, rather than accelerating ovarian aging. Future work, however, is needed to determine whether egg production and quality can be improved, and if so, how quickly, if these work exposures are avoided,” said Audrey Gaskins, research associate in the Department of Nutrition.

Agencies/Canadajournal