Women who eat
partner’s infertility.
Grieger said, “Most of the women did not have a history of infertility. We adjusted the relationships with pre-pregnancy diet to take account of several factors known to increase the risk of infertility, including elevated body mass index [BMI] and maternal age and smoking.
“As diet is a modifiable factor, our findings underscore the importance of considering preconception diet to support timely conception for women planning pregnancy.”
The researchers also found that while intake of fruit and fast foods affected time to pregnancy, prepregnancy intake of green leafy vegetables or fish did not.
Limitations of the study include the fact that collecting data on pre-pregnancy diet relied on retrospective recall and included a limited range of foods.
Information on the fathers’ diet was not collected, and it is possible that other, unknown factors might have affected the results. A major strength is the large group of women included in the study.
Grieger said, “For any dietary intake assessment, one needs to use some caution regarding whether participant recall is an accurate reflection of dietary intake.
“However, given that many women do not change their diet from pre-pregnancy to during pregnancy, we believe that the women’s recall of their diet one month prior to pregnancy is likely to be reasonably accurate.”
The researchers are continuing their work and plan to identify particular dietary patterns, rather than individual food groups, that may be associated with how long it takes women to become pregnant.