…how exercise affects your ability to get pregnant.
Perhaps not surprisingly, women who exercise strenuously, like athletes or those who train for marathons or triathlons, sometimes find it difficult to get pregnant. When too many of the body’s resources are being used to fuel athletic training and repair the body after each workout then there’s nothing left to support a growing fetus.
A recent Danish study looked at 3000 women who were trying to get pregnant naturally, without any fertility treatments. They found that with just five hours of vigorous exercise per week a woman’s chances of getting pregnant in any given month drop by almost 50%.
In a surprising twist, however, the same study found that women who do little or no exercise at all often have a harder time getting pregnant than women who engage in regular, moderate exercise.
In a further twist, this applies only to women with a normal body weight, or a BMI of under 25. For an overweight woman with a BMI of 25 or above, exercise at any level—light, moderate, or vigorous—slightly improves her chances of getting pregnant in any given month.
So if you’re thinking about trying to get pregnant, or if you’ve already started and it’s not happening as quickly as you’d like, take a look at your exercise habits and perhaps a little adjustment will speed things along.
