Stress, obesity may delay pregnancy in young couples

Hyderabad: Stress and obesity might delay pregnancy in young couples, Nova IVI Fertility (NIF) consultant Dr Saroja Koppala said.Talking to media here on Wednesday, Dr Saroja said that about one in every 10-12 couple were impacted by infertility in India. Obesity levels among men and women in Telangana have seen an increase of over ten per cent over the last decade, as recorded by the National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHF-4). The survey indicated that in the 15-49 years age group, 30.9 per cent of women and 28.2 per cent of men were obese in Telangana.

“Many lifestyle factors such as the age at which to start a family, weight, lack of exercise, pshychological stress, environmental and occupational exposures, and others can have substantial effects on fertility. Women or men who consume tobacco, excessive alcohol or caffeine are more likely to develop problems of infertility”, Dr Saroja said.

She said that some research shows that stress also affects testosterone levels and sperm production in men. For some women, chronic stress can affect ovulation by atltering the signals to the hypothalamus, the centre of the brain that regulates some of the hormones that trigger the ovaries to release eggs each month. Women under non stop stress may ovulate less regularly, making it difficult to achieve pregenancy during the fertile window. Getting too little sleep can also cause hormonal imbalance and can have a surprising impact on conception.” Sleep is super-regenerative and gives the body a chance to relax and recover from a stressful day”, Dr Saroja said. 

NIF is the among the largest service providers in the fertility space. In addition to providing core procedures such as IUI, IVF, and Andrology services, NIF offers several state-of-the-art technologies such as Verification for preserving embryos and eggs, ERA to find out the timing of the uterus’ capacity to accept embryos, PGS and PGD for the transfer of genetically normal embryos—all procedures that significantly improve the chances of a pregnancy following IVF-ICSI, even in patients with multiple previous failures.(UNI)