Pregnancy News: Women Who Have Had Tonsils and Appendix Removed Have Higher Pregnancy Rates

Women who have had their appendix or tonsils or both removed in surgical procedures are more likely to become pregnant, the findings of a new study involving women in the United Kingdom has shown. This study does not encourage women to have an appendectomy or tonsillectomy to get pregnant.

"We have found that women who have had an appendectomy or tonsillectomy, or even more particularly both, are more likely to become pregnant, and sooner than the rest of the general population," said study co-author Sami Shimi, as per Medical News Today. Shimi is a clinical senior lecturer in the School of Medicine at the University of Dundee.

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The researchers looked at medical records of 54, 675 women who had undergone appendectomy, 112, 607 women who had undergone tonsillectomy and 10,340 women who had both their appendix and tonsils removed. Their pregnancy rates were compared to 355,244 women who did not go through appendectomy or tonsillectomy.

According to Daily Mail, women who did not have their appendix removed had a pregnancy rate of 43.7 percent. Those who have had their appendix removed had a pregnancy rate of 54.4 percent while those who have had their tonsils removed had a pregnancy rate of 53.4 percent. The pregnancy rate of women who have had both their appendix and tonsils removed was highest at 59.7 percent.

"There are several explanations which may account for these observations, one of which is that the removal of these tissues makes an alteration to their immune system which has an impact to some aspect of the reproductive process (such as how their embryos implant in the womb)," said Prof. Allan Pacey, from the University of Sheffield in an interview with BBC. Pacey called the study "interesting."

The researchers think that a behavioral cause for higher pregnancy rates for women who have undergone appendectomy and tonsillectomy is more likely than a biological one. Their findings have been published in the international journal Fertility and Sterility.