How Obesity Affects Fertility

Being overweight or obese drastically increases your risk for diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke and even some cancers. And if you’re trying to conceive, excess weight can lower your fertility and increase the possibility of pregnancy complications for you and your baby.

So how do you know if you are at risk or already in the danger zone? A standard way to determine if you are overweight or obese is to calculate your body mass index or BMI. BMI is calculated from your weight and height and BMI tables are easily accessible online. According to BMI tables, you are overweight if your BMI is between 25 and 30 and you are obese if your BMI is over 30. While these are standard tables that don’t account for differences in body type, muscle mass or ethnicity, they do provide a general framework for assessing if you are at a healthy weight.

All adults should have an annual physical exam and your healthcare provider can counsel you about your weight during that visit. Your provider can also monitor your blood pressure and periodically screen you for high cholesterol and diabetes.

And if you’re thinking of having a baby, you should focus on achieving a healthy weight before you get pregnant. For some women, excess weight can lead to irregular menstrual cycles, infertility and higher risk of miscarriages. There are also reports that obese women get pregnant less often with fertility treatments than normal weight women. Whether you get pregnant naturally or through fertility treatment, being overweight can raise your risk of pregnancy complications like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, hypertension, fetal growth problems and even birth defects.

By...Belinda Yeboah

Comments

SPECIAL EDITION: PRAY OVER YOUR MARRIAGE and another love story

Dear readers, Words are powerful. I have learnt to let most of the things I say be positive and contain a prayer. Praying God's word over your marriage is important. Marriage is a blessing from God, but it is not always cherished the way it should be; Maybe because life gets busy, or we get distracted; Maybe because we start to take one another for granted; Or we disagree and let resentments hang on longer than they should. Hm! I was taught recently that the baggages we bring along from our past, into our marriages are a great burden as well. We take these baggages for granted but believe you me, most old baggages, are the cause of most broken marriages. Some baggages are in the form of old girlfriends and boyfriends who are witches and wizards, or left some kind of spiritual bonding with your spouse. Some are in the form of just clingy exes. Some baggages may even just be low self esteem or extreme high expectations. When joined as ''one'', a new battle to...

Akos breaks TV3 Mentor's male winner record

The male dominance in TV3′s Mentor came to an end in the wee hours of Monday, August 19, 2013 when Roselyn Akosua Mantey, popularly called Akos, was adjudged winner of Season VII of the station’s flagship reality show. She beat competition from Gabriel Ansah, populalrly known as Gabby, and Honny Kingsley Theophilus, also known as Honny, to walk away with the sleek Hyndai Accent saloon car. She will also be GH¢7,000 richer and will receive souvenirs from sponsors. Akos’ performance in the final, held at the Accra International Conference Center (AICC), kept a large section of the audience chorusing her name as winner of the contest, which began with 16 contestants. The night began with performances from Mentor IV winner Michael Kesse Frimpong (Kesse) and Mentor II runner-up Joseph Nii Otu Ankrah, known during his “Mentor days” as Joe but now with showbiz monicker Nii. After the introduction of the various groups into which this season’s...

THE NAKED MARRIAGE

Welcome dear Readers, You must be thinking that I want to talk about sex today. But hey, we will be talking about that plus a lot more. True intimacy requires what happens in the bedroom plus a lot more. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve, the first couple. They lived in an ideal world; no debt, no no crazy in laws, no baggage, no stress, no fighting and and also, NO CLOTHING! (Gen 2:25) When God reveals unto us a naked marriage, He is revealing to us something more than just walking around the house with no clothes on or just sex. He is revealing the importance of TRANSPARENCY, VULNERABILITY,ACCEPTANCE and INTIMACY at every level of the relationship. I am suggesting we become more intentional about working on our relationships this way. Love is honest. Love is trust. You open yourself to temptations when you decide not to live in a naked marriage. These temptations have led many down the path of doom. My husband used to believe trust in a marriage is a sacrifice. T...

INFO MAWULI

Search This Blog