Young black women with large waist-to-hip ratios face decreased fertility, reports a new substudy from the Black Women’s Health Study.
Fecundity, or the level of fertility, was found to be lower in women with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.8 or greater.
As a women’s weight increased, their fecundity decreased. Overweight women had a fecundity ratio (FR) of 0.89, obese woman a FR of 0.75, and very obese women a FR of 0.68.
BMI groups were defined as follows: overweight (BMI, 25-29), obese (BMI, 30-34) and very obese (BMI, 35 or greater).
Interestingly, a waist circumference of 33-35 inches was significantly associated with lower fecundity.
The substudy analyzed women from the primary study of 59,000 women. Women who were over the age of 40 or had diagnosed subfertility were not included in the analysis.
The study is the first “time to pregnancy” study performed in black women. These preliminary results do agree with previous fertility studies in white women.
