Physical Activity and Body Mass Index in Relation to Infertility in Women

Abstract

Background: Infertility is a global social issue, and reproductive health is a priority in global health. This review aimed to study the relation between physical activity (PA) and infertility in non-obese or non-overweight women.

Methods: We used search strategies in the National Library of Medicine database including the PubMed database to October 2019 to find articles related to women and fertility, infertility, exercise, PA, pregnancy rate, live births, fecundability, and conception. Only cohort studies or randomized controlled trials in English were chosen for review that included outcomes directly related to becoming pregnant. We selected studies in which the participants were categorized by low or high body mass index (BMI).

Results: We found 6 papers meeting our criteria. In the association between PA and outcome, vigorous PA in women with low BMI resulted in both positive and negative effects that were weaker than those in women with high BMI. Among women with low BMI, moderate PA was weakly but positively associated with outcome whereas walking was not.

Conclusion: We observed some trends and a slight difference between the outcomes of women with low versus high BMI. There are only a few studies on infertile women with low BMI, and further investigation is warranted.

Keywords: Physical activity; body mass index; exercise; fertility; infertility; pregnant.