Having a hysterectomy? Ask your doctor to take your body fat into consideration when choosing a surgery, suggests a new study in Human Reproduction. When Danish researchers analyzed the medical records of more than 20,000 hysterectomy patients, they found that women with a body mass index (BMI)—a measure of body fat based on height and weight—greater than 30 had far fewer complications, both during surgery and in the 30 days after their procedures when they had laparoscopic or vaginal hysterectomies rather than abdominal surgery. Slimmer women with a BMI less than 19.9, however, fared much better if they opted for a vaginal hysterectomy over abdominal and laparoscopic surgeries. Why would body fat matter? Incision size, explains lead study author Merete Osler, DMSc, PhD, professor of clinical databases at Research Centre for Prevention and Health, Glostrup University Hospital in Copenhagen Demark. “Women with higher BMIs end up with larger wounds, which can lead to more bleeding and a higher risk for infection,” she says. “When you do a laparoscopic or vaginal hysterectomy, the wound is much smaller.” That said, researchers aren’t sure why thin women have more complications after abdominal surgery, which generally involves more post-op pain and a longer recovery time than the other procedures anyway. One theory is that the slender women in the study were more likely to smoke, which impairs wound healing. To calculate your BMI, click here.

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