Impact of lifestyle related factors on infertile women in Baghdad

Background: Many lifestyle variables have been shown to impact women's fertility throughout the last few decades. Objectives: To compare effect of lifestyle factors on infertile and fertile women and find out if there is any association between demographic variables and life style status of the studied sample. Methodology: A case-control study design was conduct were 400 women was involved. Two hundred infertile women were recruited as the study group, and another 200 fertile women were taken as the control group. Data were collected by a self-structured questionnaire that was established by researchers, based on data from relevant international studies. Results: Patients were more avoidance to drugs, smoking, and alcohol than control group (P value = 0.04). There was significant negative correlation between socio-demographic variables and physical activity and exercise in patients group (r=-0.199, p <0.05). The odds of physical health were significantly decreased in females with free business (OR =0.278, 95% CI 0.103–1.39), and females with primary education (OR =0.430, 95% CI 0.165–1.121). The odds of environmental pollutants/harmful substance factor avoidance were significantly increased in persons with Primary education (OR =2.1, 95% CI 0.491–3.401; 2.33, 95% CI 0.13–2.33). Conclusion: Lifestyle factors significantly affected female fertility, SES may play an important role in human fertility. The infertile women significantly had more avoidance of Drugs, smoking and alcohol than the fertile group.