Eating disorders affect fertility

According to a UK study, eating disorders of all kinds are associated with infertility and negative attitudes toward pregnancy. The research also showed high rates of unplanned pregnancies for women with eating disorders like anorexia suggesting they may be underestimating their chances of getting pregnant. The study is published in An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

It is known that eating disorders cause infertility by disrupting hormone flow. Sometimes the disruption is severe enough to cause amenorrhea, or loss of ovulation, leaving women infertile. Nevertheless there has been little research about how anorexia and bulimia affect fertility.

Over eleven thousand pregnant women were surveyed for the study. The ones with eating disorders were compared to the ones without. A larger number of women with a history of either eating disorder took longer than six months to conceive compared to general population, 39.5% versus 25%.

A large percentage, 41.5%, of the group of women with eating disorders also reported at 18 weeks of gestation that their pregnancies were unintentional. This is compared to 28.6% of the general population.

The eating disorder women also revealed they had negative feelings about being pregnant. Almost 10% of them sad they were unhappy when they found out they were pregnant.

“This research highlights that there are risks to fertility associated with eating disorders. However, the high rates of unplanned pregnancies in women with a history of anorexia suggest that women may be underestimating their chances of conceiving,” concluded Abigail Easter lead author from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London.

Source: King’s College London, Science Daily