Lifestyle

There are many factors that can affect your fertility. One of them is your lifestyle, for instance diet, exercise, alcohol and smoking. This goes for the fertility of both men and women.

Improving your life style could improve your chances of getting pregnant.

Overweight and fertility treatment

Overweight is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a BMI (Body Mass Index) at or above 25. 

BMI is used as a screening tool for overweight and is calculated like this:

BMI =Weight (kg)

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Height  * height (m)

Overweight women have more difficulties getting pregnant than women in the normal range. This is because increased fat tissue, especially in the abdominal area, affects the hormones that regulate the menstrual cycle.  Obese women often experience that their menstrual cycle and ovulation stop or become irregular.

When it comes to fertility treatment and pregnancy, overweight women have an increased risk:

• That their ovaries don’t react as well to hormone treatment, and that higher doses are needed to stimulate production of the hormones needed
• That there are complications in connection with egg extraction, such as bleeding and infections
• That they miscarriage, especially in early pregnancy
• That there are complications in connection with the pregnancy, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and deep vein thrombosis in the legs
• That there are complications during birth, for instance that the baby gets stuck in the birth canal, and if a caesarean is necessary, there’s an increased risk of infection in the surgical wound

Weight loss

The lower fertility found in overweight or obese women is reversible, meaning that losing weight can increase the fertility of these women.

Research has shown that if overweight women lose 10% of their weight, then 80% of the women who experienced menstrual problems will again have regular menstruation and ovulation.  This is the case even if they’re still overweight after their weight loss. 75% will get pregnant, and 25% of them without any treatment. The risk of early miscarriage falls to almost normal levels after weight loss.

Basically, you become overweight if you eat more calories than you burn off. From this follows that there are two ways you can lose weight:

• You can eat less and fewer calories, or
• You can burn more calories by exercising more

This does not mean that losing 10% of your weight is easy. That’s the reason why we advise you to involve a dietician to help you lose weight. Ask one of our staff members at Aagaard Fertilitetsklinik for advice.

Exercise

It’s good for your body to be physically active. Physical activity reduces the risk of overweight and lifestyle diseases like cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and psychological stress. But physical activity can also improve your fertility. When you’re trying to get pregnant, we recommend that you exercise every day. The Danish Health Authority recommends all adults to be physically active for at least 30 min. a day.

Smoking

If you smoke, your chance of getting pregnant, including through IUI or IVF treatment, is reduced. Which is why we recommend that you give up smoking.

Alcohol

Research shows that alcohol, even in small quantities, can reduce a woman’s fertility. So we recommend that you reduce your alcohol intake as much as possible.

If you have a partner, we also recommend that he or she gives up smoking, so that you are not exposed to second-hand smoke either.

Men’s fertility is also negatively affected by smoking. The semen quality of men who smoke is reduced and there’s a larger number of abnormal sperm cells.