Women who have asthma take just a little longer to get pregnant, according to a new study published Thursday. Their overall fertility rates, however, are most likely unaffected, The Huffington Post reported.
The Denmark study polled 15,000 women - around 1,000 of whom had asthma - and discovered that 27 percent of those who suffered from the respiratory condition took longer than a year to get pregnant compared to 21 percent of those didn't. The gap held when researchers controlled for other factors that could affect pregnancy like age, body mass index (BMI), and smoking, according to The Huff Post.
Women with asthma had the same number of children than women without it, a seemingly contradictory result that study co-author Dr. Elisabeth Juul Gade said could partly be explained by the tendency of asthma sufferers to have babies at an early age -- thus giving them more time to become pregnant, The Huff Post reported.
That rationale could also be used to explain one way in which asthma prolongs conception. Though researchers don't exactly know why asthma has this effect, Dr. Avner Hershlag, who wasn't involved in the study, believes it could be because those with the condition can't attempt pregnancy as often as those without it.
"If you have any major medical condition that really interferes with your daily life, it's bound to also affect your conception," said Hershlag, who's chief of the Center For Human Reproduction at North Shore University Hospital in Long Island, NY. "When someone is sick and asthmatic, their focus changes, from 'I'm going to get pregnant,' to 'I'm going to get better."
In conjunction with a previous study that found asthma does not affect fertility rate, Hershlag qualified his comments.
"Long term, there is absolutely no effect on fertility for patients with asthma," he said.
Gade and her colleagues, however, may disagree with that assertion. Because inflammation caused asthma can spread beyond the respiratory system, they posited that the condition might affect blood flow to the uterus, and thus alter the chances of conception, according to The Huff Post.
They'll be exploring that and more in future research, according to The Huff Post.
