Wine boosts pregnancy

Women who have a glass of wine in the evening are more likely to become pregnant quickly, it was claimed today.

A major new study suggests that women who have a moderate amount of red or white wine stand a better chance of becoming pregnant within two months than those who prefer beer and spirits, or do not drink at all.

But fertility experts warn that drinking more than two glasses a day could have the opposite effect.

The study involved almost 30,000 pregnant women who were asked about the amount and type of alcohol they drank before conceiving. All of those who took part planned to become pregnant, and were asked how long it took them to succeed. Half became pregnant in the first two months of trying, while 15 per cent had to wait over a year.

The results show that women who regularly drank wine were almost a third less likely to wait more than a year before becoming pregnant. They stood 23per cent less chance of waiting more than two months before conception than the teetotallers, beer or spirit drinkers.

Mette Juhl, of the Danish Epidemiology Science Centre, who led the research, said: "It shows a link between fertility and wine drinking. We don't know exactly why wine drinkers become pregnant quicker. It could be something in the wine, or, for example, that wine drinkers have healthier diets."

Women in the study were also asked about other factors. Wine drinkers were not significantly more likely to have a healthy body weight or avoid smoking than those who drank beer, spirits or abstained from alcohol, suggesting these factors did not account for their better fertility.

Fertility expert Peter Brinsden, of the Bourn Hall Clinic, Cambridgeshire, which produced the world's first test tube baby 25 years ago, said: "My advice is to be careful. Any more than two glasses of wine a day is almost certain to reduce natural fertility - not just among women."