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Eye on Health: Fertility & Obesity
We all know that being overweight or obese can cause a variety of health problems.
Doctors say it can also affect your ability to have children.
"I've always been a big girl. I'm ok with that. It's who I am," says fertility patient Karin Rodriguez.
Rodriguez never worried about her weight, until doctors told her it could prevent the one thing she always wanted.
"I would have taken it a little more seriously instead of finding out, 'Ok, this is what you have to do or you have no other option. This is what you have to do to have the family you want," says Rodriguez.
Doctors told Rodriguez that she may never have a baby if she didn't lose some weight. That's because her and her husband were having fertility problems. Doctors said her only option to get pregnant was in vitro fertilization, but she was too heavy to undergo anesthesia.
They were also worried that her weight would complicate her pregnancy, risking her life and her unborn baby's.
"It can affect the entire system. Not only the ovulation of the egg, but also the implantation process and also there's some data coming out, even suggesting it may effect egg quality or even the development of the embryo," says Dr. Stephen Greenhouse.
Reproductive Endocrinologist Dr. Greenhouse says being overweight and obese can impact a woman's hormones and other substances in the blood.
That can affect everything from eggs to embryos and can even cause miscarriage.
Newer studies are also showing an increase in birth defects among obese mothers.
