London - Dropping a dress size helps a woman become pregnant faster – even if she isn’t overweight to start with.
Women who lost 11lb (5kg), the equivalent of going from a size 14 to a 12, conceived a fortnight faster than others, a study found.
Surprisingly, those who were slim to begin with benefited just as much as those who were fat.
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in the US said the finding couldn’t simply be explained by overweight women having irregular periods. Instead, eggs could be of poorer quality or the womb lining may not be ripe enough for any eggs that are fertilised to implant there.
Researcher Dr Audrey Gaskins said it wasn’t clear why weight loss helped the women who were slim anyway. But it might be that those who were helped most were at the heavier end of normal weight.
The amount of time saved means that women who went down a dress size took two-and-a-half months to become pregnant, compared to the three months the others spent trying, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual conference heard. - Daily Mail