Infertility, the inability to obtain a pregnancy followed by a living birth despite at least 12 months of unprotected sexual intercourse, affects 3.3 million people in France.
Multiple factors cause this increased infertility including the increased age at childbearing, medical causes and environmental and lifestyle factors.
Among the medical causes, polycystic ovary syndrome affecting up to 13% of women of reproductive age, and primary ovarian insufficiency (premature cessation of ovarian function) affecting 1-3% of women under 40, represent major causes of infertility. The genetic and environmental determinants of these reproductive diseases still need to be fully understood as for severe sperm defects, which have widely progressed in the last decades. Some of the environmental and lifestyle factors incriminated in fertility decline include exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, global warming and occurrence of heat stress episodes, diet and rising rates of obesity, stress…
In this context of increased infertility, the demand in assisted reproduction has been steadily increasing for the last decades. In France, assisted reproductive techniques contributed to the birth of over 400 000 babies since the 1980s. Nevertheless, the success rate of assisted reproduction remains low, which is painful and stressful for women and couples trying to conceive.
There is therefore an urgent need to improve reproductive health and make assisted reproductive techniques more successful and efficient. For this purpose, our Infertil-SaFe research program, carried by the “Women’s and Couples’ Health” Research Program (PEPR SAFE), tackles three main complementary objectives.
