Study shows coffee can reduce your chances of getting pregnant

Read this article online from this summers Telegraph newspaper that thought was interesting-the headline certainly grabbed my attention as I love a good cup of coffee or three.

A study published recently, has shown that drinking more than 4 cups of coffee a day, may significantly reduce a womans chances of getting pregnant. Good news when your not trying to conceive but not so great when you are. It seems a heavy caffeine intake may be as bad for womens fertility as being obese or heavy drinking.

Here is an extract from the article:

The findings, published at the European Society for Human Reproduction & Embryology (ESHRE) conference in Barcelona, suggest that drinking large amounts of coffee can reduce a woman’s chances of getting pregnant by a quarter. Researchers looked at more than 8,000 women who had IVF treatment between 1983 and 1995 in the Netherlands. More than 16 per cent of the women went on to conceive naturally in the following years. When the scientists analysed the women’s lifestyle they found marked patterns in the birth rates. Women who drank four cups of coffee a day were 26 per cent less likely than average to have conceived naturally, the findings show.  Click here to read the full article

Paradoxically a previous study into male fertility suggested that coffee could increase sperm mobility, raising a man’s chances of getting a woman pregnant, but that is a subject for another blog.

Visit Access Diagnostics UK Fertility site

Can work related stress affect your fertility ?

I Just read this very interesting article online about work related stress, and how it affects women. The article is from September 21, 2008

Here is an extract of the article, explaining how stress can affect fertility:

Risking infertility

One in seven couples in the UK now struggles to conceive and, for many women, prolonged stress and anxiety could be the root cause. Professor Sarah Berga of Emory University in America is a leading proponent of the link between chronic stress and compromised fertility. She has shown that stress often triggers a cascade of events that result in reduced levels of two hormones that are crucial for ovulation, and that women with hectic jobs on top of busy lives are most at risk. One of her studies, published two years ago, showed that women who didnt ovulate had excessive levels of the stress hormone cortisol present in their brain fluid.

Your brain is hard to fool, says Berga. If you are undereating, overworking and overexercising, then the hypothalamus  the part of the brain that controls the release of hormones  keeps a running tally of what you are doing.

For many women, stress-related infertility can be reversed. Berga found that ovulation was restored in seven out of 10 women who underwent talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy.