Scientists believe a parasitic worm, called the Ascaris lumbricoides, could help women become more fertile.
A study which looked at 986 Bolivian women from the indigenous Tsimane tribe, who were infected with the roundworm, found it could lead to them having two extra children.
The participants of the study had an average of nine children, with 70% of the population infected with the worm.
According to researchers, who shared their results in Science Magazine, the worm alters a female’s immune system and makes it easier for them to get pregnant, believing it could be "novel fertility enhancing drugs".
Talking about the results of the survey, researcher Professor Aaron Blackwell said that the “effects are unexpectedly large”.
"We think the effects we see are probably due to these infections altering women's immune systems, such that they become more or less friendly towards a pregnancy."
However, he was a little cautious about using the worms to help with fertility, explain that far more investigative research needs to put into the possibility before “recommending anyone try this”.
Something Professor Allan Pacey, a fertility scientist at the University of Sheffield agress with, telling the BBC: “Whilst I wouldn’t want to suggest that women try and become infected with roundworms as a way of increasing their fertility, further studies of the immunology of women who do have the parasite could ultimately lead to new and novel fertility enhancing drugs,”
