Odd hours ‘make it 80% harder to become pregnant’

Odd hours ‘make it 80% harder to become pregnant’

Women who work night shifts can find it 80 per cent harder to have a baby, Daily Mail cites a study as saying.

Any erratic work pattern carries higher risk of miscarriage, irregular periods and fertility problems compared to a nine to five routine, research by Southampton University suggests.

Shift workers are twice as likely to be classed sub-fertile – meaning they fail to get pregnant within a year.

The survey of more than 100,000 women revealed that any working patterns other than permanent day shifts raised the odds of the menstrual cycle being disrupted by a fifth. Miscarriages were almost a third more common.

And those who worked only nights – as opposed to working a mixed shift pattern – were 80 per cent more likely to struggle to conceive than those who did days.

But fertility doctors are urging women of childbearing age – who account for around 20 per cent of shift workers – not to quit their jobs until research is conclusive. Researcher Dr Linden Stocker, a paediatrician who works shifts herself, said that the problems may be caused by working and sleeping at irregular times disrupting a woman’s body clock, which helps control key functions including hormone production, temperature, blood pressure and heart rate. daily times monitor