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Nicole Richie Can Get Pregnant?How underweight mommies make it happen.

By Katherine Evans
Posted Tuesday, July 17, 2007, at 4:56 PM ET
Nicole Richie. Click image to expand.

Rumors have been swirling for the past few weeks that Nicole Richie—daughter of Lionel, on-again/off-again BFF of Paris Hilton, and published author—has a bun in the oven. Although Richie's camp has yet to confirm the pregnancy rumors, tabloid magazines seem to be betting the farm that Richie is about 12 weeks along. But how can someone her size get pregnant?

With difficulty. At the time of her DUI arrest in December, police listed Richie as 5 feet 1 and 85 pounds, which gives her a body mass index of around 16. For women with a BMI of less than 18 or 19 (that would be between 101 and 106 pounds for Richie), the chances of getting pregnant are pretty slim. Women need fat to signal the pituitary gland to ovulate—without it, their bodies go into a kind of famine mode and won't use up energy to maintain reproductive processes. Women need at least 24 percent body fat to have normal periods; those with between 17 and 24 percent will ovulate irregularly. Someone with less than 17 percent body fat, like an anorexic, will return to a prepubescent state in which she doesn't ovulate at all. (Richie has denied having an eating disorder, although she was hospitalized last year for an "inability to put on weight.")

Fertility drugs such as gonadotropins can help underweight women start ovulating again. Doctors say that such treatment is also common among those who lose their periods due to strenuous exercise. Once an underweight woman conceives, though, it's important that she puts on weight steadily throughout her pregnancy. The average weight gain for mothers is around 28 pounds, and someone of Richie's height should work to add at least 20. (Miscarriage and other complications are a greater threat for skinny women.)

Bonus Explainer: If Richie were pregnant, could it keep her out of jail? No. Unless a woman is in the last few weeks of her pregnancy, a judge normally won't postpone her trial. About 5 percent of female prisoners arrive at jail pregnant, and most detention centers have in-house OB/GYN care. If Richie does end up pregnant in the big house, at least she'll have the option of going to her own doctor. In California, a prisoner can visit an outside health-care provider as long as she has the funds to pay for an accompanying security detail from the sheriff's department.

Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Myles Berman, a defense attorney in Los Angeles County, Lawrence Grunfeld of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, and Fady Sharara of the Virginia Center for Reproductive Medicine.

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Katherine Evans is a Slate intern.
Photograph of Nicole Richie by Marsaili McGrath/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

I must be a freak of nature, because I did! Nineteen years ago, I got pregnant within a week after my husband and I decided to try for a baby. Healthy baby girl nine months later, although she was very skinny as a kid, and now is very tiny herself (4'11' 95 lbs) She had little stick legs, and people who didn't know me thought I wasn't feeding her!

I was 5'1, 80-85 lbs (not anorexic, really skinny people are common in my family). I must have had a decent amount of body fat at the time, because I wore a C-cup bra back then.

Depends on the person, and their particular genetics I would say.

--love_da_drool

(To reply, click here.)

I don't give a damn about Nicole Richie, but I don't really understand why you feel comfortable suggesting (don't deny it) that she's had hormone treatments in order to become pregnant. As I and at least one other person have commented, it is indeed possible to become pregnant at 85 pounds.

The fact that you stated the implication in the guise of an informational "Explainer" piece is somehow more cheesy than if you'd treated the subject in the manner of, say, "US Weekly."

--SlateReader

(To reply, click here.)

Both my cousin and I have been 5'2'', 85 pound beanpoles and we both had regular periods. Actually my periods themselves were quite extreme - it definitely didn't appear that my body was trying to save energy! My cousin was bedridden for the last 2 months of her pregnancy, but that's not unusual for women of any size in our family. She didn't have any trouble getting pregnant. Just as with other aspects of health, thinness is only a problem if it's unnatural.

Interestingly, my cousin and I weren't considered dangerously thin when we were growing up. "Normal" has moved considerably.

--CrookedCubed

(To reply, click here.)

(7/19)

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