Texas A&M associate professor Dr. Golding: Successful IVF procedures 'are increasing simply by addressing both parents’ health habits'

Research from Texas A&M associate professor Dr. Michael Golding has revealed that male alcohol use has a significant negative influence on the success rates of in vitro fertilization (IVF), increasing patients' financial and emotional burdens according to a news article published by Texas A&M Today on Jan. 26.

Dr. Golding and his team of researchers said that their study highlights the importance of expanding fertility and prepregnancy messaging to stress the reproductive danger of alcohol use by both the mother and the father.

Couples having fertility issues are increasingly using assisted reproductive technologies (ART) like IVF to have children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that approximately 2% of all babies born in the U.S. are conceived using ART, meaning that one in 50 babies were conceived using ART in 2021. Golding stated that the statistics highlight the importance of studying both parents' contributions to fertility and pregnancy outcomes.

“We say to the woman, ‘You need to be careful of what you eat. You need to stop smoking. You need to be doing all these different things to improve fertility,’” Golding said. “We don’t say anything to the man, and that’s a mistake, because what we’re seeing here is that the couple’s odds of success with their IVF procedure are increasing simply by addressing both parents’ health habits.”

Golding used a mouse model to study the effects of a potential father's alcohol consumption on IVF pregnancy outcomes. The model included a control group representing non-drinking males, a group representing males who chronically drink at the legal limit, and a group representing males who chronically drink at one-and-a-half times the legal limit. The research results revealed that the more a male drinks before providing sperm for an IVF pregnancy, the less likely the pregnancy is to be successful.

“Seeing the negative effects in both the legal limit group and the group drinking at one-and-a half times the legal limit revealed that as alcohol dose increases, things get worse,” Golding said. “That really surprised me. I didn’t think that it would be that cut and dry. That really emphasized that even very modest levels of exposure were breaking through and having an impact on conception, implantation and overall IVF pregnancy success rates.”

Ph.D candidate and researcher Alexis Roach, who assisted in the study, served as the first author of the IVF research paper. She noted that their findings and additional research challenge the mainly maternal-focused narrative of previous IVF research. She added that it's important to make the research findings available to the general public.

“The most important aspect of this research is that it makes it clear that everybody plays a role in achieving successful pregnancy outcomes, even though the general assumption is that it’s just women,” Roach said. “The most important thing to take away from this is that if you’re a male considering having a family, abstain from alcohol until your wife gets pregnant.”

The research concludes the male alcohol use reduces an embryo's ability to successfully implant in the uterus and cuts IVF embryo survival rates. The research also raised more questions about fetal development and paternal drinking. Golding and his team are continuing to research these questions and the paternal impact on the development of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, conditions that can occur when a person is exposed to alcohol before birth. Golding's work aims to provide a holistic approach to understanding fetal development and pregnancy by studying the father's role.

“It is important to remember that couples struggling with fertility who have chosen to pursue IVF are under intense emotional and financial pressure, which is associated with a feeling of helplessness,” Golding said. “Our study demonstrates that drinking alcohol is an unrecognized factor that negatively impacts IVF pregnancy success rates. Therefore, as alcohol use is easily changed, our study identifies a shared action item that can empower the couple to work together toward their goal of becoming pregnant.”