Pollution and birthrate. Serious problems for Italy, far from European green objectives and with the lowest birth rate since the Unification in 1861. Issues that may seem different but find common ground in the word “fertility.” One should not only think about those who do not want children, there are also those who cannot have them. One of the causes is the polluted air we breathe.
“For women living in an area with more fine particulate matter, the risk of having a reproductive disadvantage is three times higher.” This is what Antonio La Marca, a doctor and professor of Gynecology at the University of Modena, found in his study, which has been internationally relaunched by newspapers such as The Guardian and The Times. “We based our study on data from 1,318 women living in our province, crossing them with those from Emilia-Romagna with respect to exposure to environmental factors, such as PM10, PM2.5, and nitrogen dioxide, between 2007 and 2017.”
The amount of particulate matter in cities has been correlated with the number of follicles present in the ovaries, the main parameter for evaluating female fertility. “In the most polluted provincial areas, there is a greater risk of having a low ovarian reserve,” explains the professor, “while among men, a reduction in spermogram, that is the concentration of spermatozoa in seminal fluid, has been consolidating over the last decades.”
Short-term solutions lie indoors. What we can work on is “the indoor environment,” according to La Marca: “Today there is a range of interior architectures aimed at improving indoor air quality and reducing contaminated air within our homes. For example, the chimneys generate an amount of PM2.5 that is frightening.”
Making pollution levels acceptable in Italy will take time. The smog in Milan has alarmed the Italian Society of Reproduction (S.i.d.R.), according to which a change of pace is needed “if we want to ensure new growth perspectives and a healthy and prosperous life for future generations.”
Worrying data also emerge from the cities where La Marca’s study was conducted. No province meets the fine particulate matter limits set by the European Commission, which must be reached by 2030. In Modena, in 2023, the average value of PM10 was twenty-eight micrograms per cubic meter of air: eight points higher than what the EU requires.
The most complicated situation is recorded in Veneto. Padua, Vicenza, and Verona are the worst centers according to Legambiente’s report “Bad Air in Cities,” with thirty-two micrograms of PM10 per cubic meter. Sixty other provinces that exceed European standards have been identified, both in the South – for example, Cagliari (30) and Avellino (29) – and in the Center, such as Frosinone (28). Only twenty-five meet the limit. The best one is L’Aquila (15), but even provinces in Liguria like Genoa, Savona, and La Spezia achieve lower acceptable values.
