Infertility

As a child, I was born and raised in Africa. My parents used DDT powder on a regular basis to keep bugs away from our house. DDT was spread on the floors of the house on a weekly basis after washing the floor. In addition, I recall my mom putting the white powder between the sheets of my bed to keep away the bugs and fleas. I lived there under these terms until I was 16 years old.  My family came to the US at that time.  In my early 30s, I started trying to get pregnant for almost ten years. I went through fertility tests and treatments.  There is no reason for my infertility. I ovulate, normal uterus, normal tubes and no reason for not getting pregnant. I did get pregnant through IVF and/ or simple Clomid and I always had miscarriages. I never had a pregnancy that lasted more than 12 weeks. I always loose my fetus before the 12 weeks. I had 9 miscarriages in about 7 years.  Could my DDT exposure as a child in Africa be the cause? if so, is there anything that I can do?  Please note that I had two IVFs and in both cases I had lots of eggs (30 to 40). So, i can produce eggs that go one to be fertilized and produce embryos.  But later, I still have miscarriages. Thank you for your input. I always wonder why.

[Elaine Brown, MD]

HI!
The only fair answer to your question  is I don't know! I am going to theorize for a moment though.  IF the DDT did cause the problem, I would have to theorize that it did so by damaging the chromosomes in the eggs.  As you are probably aware, women are born with all of their eggs already "loaded" in their ovaries.  If the DDT caused chromosomal breakage in the eggs, it could cause embryos resulting from these eggs to be abnormal and to abort.  If you were my patient, I would advise you that you are the ideal candidate for PGD-pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.  In this procedure embryos are biopsied and their chromosomes are analyzed.  Only normal embryos are then transferred.  Normal embryos result in a much higher rate of babies for obvious reasons.
If you had 20 embryos and no normal ones, I would certainly wonder if DDT exposure was related in some way.
I hope this is useful information!
Dr B