diagnosis guide
If you’ve just received a medical diagnosis, or you’re concerned that something in your present or past health history might be jeopardizing your fertility, check here for quick info on common medical conditions and how they can affect conception and pregnancy.
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Weight, Underweight
What It Is
Experts define underweight as a BMI (body mass index) less than 18.5. The formula to calculate BMI is a bit complicated: Take your weight in pounds and divide it by your height in inches, squared. Multiply that result by the number 703. Or, for an easier way, plug your height and weight into the National Institutes of Health automatic BMI calculator: BMI Calculator
Who Gets It
Only a small percentage of people qualify as underweight, compared to two-thirds of the U.S. population who are overweight.
Symptoms
Studies have shown that women who are underweight experience problems getting pregnant, and underweight men have more difficulty fathering a child.
How It's Diagnosed/Detected
Many people may not think their slender physique is a problem until they have difficulty conceiving. Keeping track of BMI is the best way to know if you are too thin.
How It Affects Fertility (And Pregnancy)
When a woman is too thin, her brain receives a signal that there is too little body fat and/or estrogen (fat cells produce estrogen) to support a pregnancy. As a result, the brain does not send the proper amount of a certain hormone to the pituitary gland to stimulate the egg-release process. According to some experts, significant numbers of “fashionably thin” women – not just anorexics – have actually stopped ovulating, even though they may still get their periods. If a woman is somewhat underweight, she may be secreting some hormones but not in the precise amounts or timing needed for conception and a healthy pregnancy.
In men, a BMI of less than 20 has been shown to significantly lower sperm count.
Treatment
For people who are chronically underweight, putting on pounds may be as difficult as it is for overweight people to take them off. Nutritional counseling may help, and even small gains can make a crucial difference.
Pregnancy Prognosis
Some experts now believe that a woman’s weight may be a factor in up to 10 percent of all infertility cases, and how much a woman weighs in the years before she thinks about having a baby may also make a difference. Because the body is so protective of itself, a woman may not be able to conceive or sustain a pregnancy if she is not within 97 percent of her ideal weight, the experts say. The good news is that gaining just three or four pounds could push a very lean woman into the “window” toward conception.
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