Eromosele Ebhomele

Some Nigerian pregnant women

Health experts have found that couples who truly want to have kids must engage in frequent sex to increase the immunity and fertility of the women.

Published in some health reports, the findings showed that frequent sexual encounters trigger the body’s natural defences in ways that could jumpstart physiological changes to boost a woman’s chance of getting pregnant.

Also published in the journal Fertility and Sterility and the journal Physiology and Behavior, the report papers having sex during periods of infertility in a woman’s cycle, that is during periods before her ovulation, could boost her chance of conceiving.

This tends to show that couples should not only depend on the woman’s ovulation period alone, but in having sex to boost her high results at ovulation.

Though there had been previous reports showing that sex outside of a woman’s ovulation period could increase her chances for getting pregnant, but it had been difficult fathoming why this was so.

Newsweek.com quotes Tierney Lorenz, a visiting research scientist at the Kinsey Institute and lead researcher on the study, as saying “it’s a new answer to an old riddle: How does sex that doesn’t happen during the fertile window still improve fertility?”

While the study went on, researchers at the Kinsey Institute and Indiana University reportedly analysed a data sample of 30 healthy women from the Kinsey Institute’s Women, Immunity and Sexual Health study.

Half of the women were sexually active while the other half were not.

In one of the published papers after the research, the experts found that the sexually active women had higher “Type 2 T-cell counts during the luteal phase of the cycle” and this is when the uterine lining thickens after ovulation and before the menstrual period starts, when a woman is most fertile.”

The Type 2 T-cells, according to experts, help to create a more conducive environment for conception.

It shows therefore that without functioning Type 2 T-cells, the body’s immune system would attack sperm cells and the emerging embryo.

Also, during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle (the period of time before ovulation), the Type 1 T-cell count was highly sexually active helping the body safeguard against illnesses and infections that could ultimately inhibit a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant.

“The second paper looked at immunoglobulin antibody levels in women who were sexually active and compared them to the levels in those who were not. These antibodies are produced by white blood cells and are critical to fighting off bacteria, viruses and other microbes.

“The researchers found that sexually active women had higher levels of certain antibodies at different times of their cycle, and the pattern reflected the body’s efforts to ramp up its protective defense to prepare for the potential for pregnancy.

“The researchers did not observe the same fluctuations in T-cell counts and immunoglobulins in non–sexually active women,” a report by newsweek.com said adding that the research could influence what recommendations physicians make to couples about how often to have sex if they are trying to conceive.

“Currently, many physicians tell couples that more sex is better, but to be sure they spend extra time in bed at the peak in a woman’s cycle when she is fertile (the five days leading up to ovulation).

“But the study suggests sex at other points throughout the cycle may also play a role in fertility, and that means physicians might tell couples who want a baby to have more sex throughout the entire month,” the report further stated.