What factors affect female fertility?
Factors that affect female fertility include: • Smoking — research shows that smoking is harmful to a woman’s ovaries. Nicotine and other chemicals interfere with hormones that affect the release of healthy eggs. While this damage is irreversible, stopping smoking will prevent further damage. • Weight — weighing too much or too little may affect a woman’s hormone levels, which causes irregular menstrual cycles. • Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) — common STIs that can cause infertility include chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV, genital warts, trichomonas and genital herpes. These diseases often display few, if any, symptoms. • Age — fertility decreases with age. A woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have and this number steadily declines over time. As a woman ages, the quality of her eggs declines as well. Every woman’s body ages at a different rate.
