Smoking can negatively impact fertility and decrease the success rate of infertility treatments. Quitting smoking before starting infertility treatment can improve the chances of pregnancy. Speak to your doctor about the best plan to quit smoking and improve your fertility.
Smoking or breathing in smoke creates addiction over time. The main addictive substance in tobacco is nicotine. It creates addiction not only physically, but also with its psychological and socially aspects. Withdrawal symptoms occur when a person does not smoke. Various tests have been developed to measure the level of smoking addiction.
The most commonly used is the “Fagerström test.” Each cigarette contains more than 4,000 chemicals that are toxic, irritating, carcinogenic or facilitate the emergence of cancer in the body. At least 81 of these cause cancer. Smoking increases the risk of developing cancers of the mouth, tongue, pharynx, larynx, salivary gland, gums, esophagus, stomach, liver, pancreas, intestine, anus, kidney, bladder, penis, cervix, and blood, especially lung cancer.
When assisted reproductive therapy is applied to cigarette-addicted couples, there is a high probability of negative results. The “number of oocytes” collected is less than the number of embryos obtained in non-dependents. Embryo retention rate and pregnancy rate are also lower than non-dependent ones. It has been confirmed in many studies that IVF cancellation rates are higher than non-dependents. Even not smoking during IVF treatment can affect the results positively. Considering these effects of smoking addiction, it may be easier for people who come for childbirth to stop smoking instead of using some drugs that increase ovulation quality and increase sperm count or use antioxidant drugs.
