Research
Hormonal
Weight gain of 15 kg or more since age 17 is associated with reduced fecundability (longer time-to-pregnancy), independent of current BMI at age 17.
If you have gained 15 kg or more since your late teens, your ability to conceive may be reduced, even if your current weight is within a 'normal' range. This suggests that the process of weight gain itself, or the metabolic changes it brings, can impact fertility.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Compared with women who maintained a stable weight since age 17 (25 to 4 kg), women who gained >=15 kg had longer TTPs (FR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.59 –0.88) after adjustment for BMI at age 17.
Why this rating
Prospective cohort design allows for temporal assessment of weight change, strengthening causal inference.
Source
An internet-based prospective study of body size and time-to-pregnancy
Lauren A. Wise et al. · Human Reproduction · 2009
DOI 10.1093/humrep/dep360
cohort · n=1651Cited 265×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Female overweight (BMI 25-29), obesity (BMI 30-34), and very obesity (BMI >=35) are associated with significantly reduced fecundability (longer time-to-pregnancy) compared to normal weight women, with the association strengthening when central adiposity (waist circumference) is controlled for.Good
- The association between underweight status (BMI <20) and fecundability is conditional on parity: it is associated with reduced fecundability in nulliparous women but increased fecundability in parous women.Moderate
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