Does Weight play a role in my fertility?
“Your weight is extremely important in your ability to get pregnant, for various reasons. But the main reason is to allow you to ovulate. You have to release an egg each month, fairly predictably, and then time that with intercourse. And as we gain weight, your regularity of your cycles decrease. One of the most common reasons to see an infertility specialist is anovulation or difficulty ovulating. Good news is that we have lots of options to help people. And a lot of times if you’re young enough, we’ll just say, Hey, why don’t we work on some diet and nutritional solutions? This is where we work with integrative colleagues like a nutritionist and even, even health coaches to help us help you through a natural approach to helping you with your fertility. So weight absolutely makes a difference. One of the most common reasons to see, an infertility specialist is called secondary infertility.
That means you didn’t have trouble getting pregnant the first time, but the second baby, you’re just having so much trouble getting there. And the number one question that I’ll ask someone is, what was your pre-pregnancy weight and where are you now? You know, life happens, you have a baby, you’re busy, work, exercise, is very hard when you have to deal with your household needs, your, your work and your new child. And so, a lot of times your PR, your weight does increase and that is contributing towards obviously Tory dysfunction, which is why you’re having trouble getting pregnant. And if you’re having trouble releasing an egg, sometimes that makes your lining not as supportive or receptive and that makes it more challenging for you. So we shouldn’t focus too much on weight, but if you, you should be within the normal range of your body mass index.
Effect of being underweight on Fertility:
And being underweight is, it is equally as bad as being overweight. And I think everybody gets stuck on overweight. But if you’re underweight, we call this hypothalamic amenorrhea. This is the same reason why I’m a gymnast who’s been doing a lot of activity. They have less than 10% body weight or they’re extremely, very, very lean. They have a hormone called leptin that says, Hey, body, I can’t have a baby right now because, you know, I don’t have enough nutrition to support a pregnancy. What you have to realize is our bodies, have adapted from famine is what we know ourselves as. And so when there was a crop failure, there was no Kroger’s nearby. And so your body knew that if you didn’t have enough food, it may not be a time to have a baby. And so if you’re working out a lot and you’re very lean, that may be contributing towards irregularity of cycles because you don’t have enough quite honestly, fat on board.
Effect of being overweight on Fertility:
And, and if you’re overweight, maybe this may be contributing towards increase in insulin, which is driving you to have irregular cycles and also contributing towards your infertility. So, bottom line is, is that weight does matter for your fertility. If you’re underweight or overweight, these both can have an impact on the regularity of your cycle. If you are having regular predictable periods, then most likely your weight is less playing a role. Okay. So you could be overweight. And having regular predictable periods and probably it’s not contributing towards your infertility, but if you have any regularity in your cycles defined as less than 25 days or greater than 36-day cycles, than 36-day cycles, then you might want to start to reevaluate and introspectively think about your own self.”
