Kim Kardashian’s Uterus ‘Cleaned Out’ May Boost Fertility Odds - Experts

Having sex 500 times a day seems not to be doing just what Kim Kardashian wished for.

A month after revealing her scores of daily sex card with husband Kanye West, the 34-year-old reality starlet had to undergo uterus "cleaned out" on Sunday's episode of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."

And doctors say the procedure — hysteroscopy with dilation and curettage — is legitimate for women having fertility problems.

"This is not like Gwyneth Paltrow steaming her vagina," says Dr. Thomas Molinaro, a reproductive endocrinologist at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey, referring to a spa treatment Paltrow gushed about earlier this year. "This is a valid medical procedure that's been around for ages."

It’s also “fairly common,” says Molinaro, who performs it 10 to 30 times a week.

Under the procedure, a doctor uses a camera to look for polyps, fibroids and anything else in the uterus that may be affecting the chances of getting pregnant. Suspicious growths get snipped out, and the uterus wall gets scraped to make sure nothing is lingering.

It requires anesthesia, but the patient can go home that day and go back to work the next.

Kardashian may have had a recent miscarriage, irregular periods or a change in bleeding, which are the main reasons doctors would perform the curettage, says Dr. Tomer Singer, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Singer estimates that approximately 15% of patients who have recently miscarried can expect to have something left over in their uterus, like Kardashian did from delivery of her daughter North in 2013, as viewers saw Sunday night.

Any growth in the uterus takes up valuable "real estate" that an embryo can't implant on, Molinaro says. Plus, problem spots can disrupt blood flow, making it harder to conceive.

And the risks don't stop pre-pregnancy: Leftover placenta can also increase the odds of a subsequent miscarriage, Singer says.

But now that Kardashian's had the procedure, it may not be long before North West gets a sibling.

"We see a significant improvement in pregnancy rates (post-op)," the Singer says.

4/13/2015