Gum Disease Could Affect Pregnancy Chances

Gum disease could increase the amount of time it takes for a woman to get pregnant, experts say.

Women with gum disease take, on average, two months longer to get pregnant than women with good oral health, said reproductive medicine professor Roger Hart, of the University of Western Australia. Hart explained his research at an annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology this week. The study had previously been published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Hart and his colleagues looked at the pregnancy planning and outcome information for 3,416 women in Australia. They found that women who had gum disease took a little bit more than seven months to get pregnant, while women without gum disease took only five months to conceive, on average.

And 13.9 percent of non-Caucasian women with gum disease took more than a year to get pregnant, compared with 6.2 percent of non-Caucasian women without gum disease, the study said.

"Our data suggest that the presence of periodontal disease is a modifiable risk factor, which can increase a woman's time to conception, particularly for non-Caucasians," Hart said in a statement. "It exerts a negative influence on fertility that is of the same order of magnitude as obesity."

Age, weight and smoking status also impacted the time it took for women in the study to conceive.

The reason for this effect could be because gum disease causes inflammation in the mouth, and some women might have a higher inflammatory response to gum disease than other women that could then affect the rest of the body, researchers said.

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Comments

[OverseasVet]

07:09 AM on 07/09/2011

Yes bad breath affects a woman's chance of pregnancy. Who pays these people to sit around thinking of this stuff?

[gposner29]

04:23 AM on 07/09/2011

Lots of things effect pregnancy. Not using a condom is right up there.

[xkglady]

12:01 AM on 07/09/2011

How does the woman's gum disease affect the health of their unborn child? Is gum disease inherited or is it an underlying health issue or lacking of calcium, potassium, iron, low blood pressure, anemia or other nutrients that sustain good health of the woman?

[xkglady]

11:36 PM on 07/08/2011

Inherited bad gums from my mother, yet, I had no problem conceiving, am a caucasion mother of three adult children and three miscarriages. While pregnant, gum disease enhances, although I can be treated by my dentist, peridontist,to surgically drain and scrape the gums, it's fruitless. I do brush, floss and go for check ups. I feel my dental treatments have literally ruined my teeth and the gums being weak, not peridontal disease, no plack or tartar, just soft, weakened gums! I am also a cancer survivor, first operation of uterian cancer at age 29, second right ovary, age 30, third, left ovary and growth on the bladder, age 37, and now in remission from lymphoma, and my father died of cancer at age 53, having great gums and never having one cavity, he died with all his teeth in tact, my mother at age 71, died of cancer, she did loose her teeth while pregnant with me, being struck by lightning in the mouth, my maternal grandmother died at 48 of Liver cancer, my paternal grandparents both died of cancer before age 60.
More times I am at the dentist, for root canals, crowns, etc, the more I have problems with the gums! Seriously, does pregnancy effect or enhance peridontal diseases? Can being pregnant draw on your health, taking nutrients from the mother?

[Kelly5472]

10:35 PM on 07/08/2011

"The reason for this effect could be because gum disease causes inflammation in the mouth"

Well crap, that's what's wrong, I've been doing it in the wrong place!!! LOL

Did they ever consider that women with gum disease either don't take as good care of themselves or are in generally overall worse health than people without gum disease? I always love these studies. They "looked at" the pregnancy planning and outcome" of these women. So, in other words, they interviewed them and relied on their memory of planning and events to develop the results. Very scientific

[lynniemiller]

10:42 PM on 07/08/2011

I agree. No statistics or hard date was provided.

[gposner29]

04:25 AM on 07/09/2011

I used to be a hard date. Now, I'm easy.