Women who have had their tonsils or appendix removed in the past are more fertile, a new 15-year study finds.

The pregnancy rate of an average woman is 43.7%. The rate of women in the study who had an appendectomy or tonsillectomy was around 54%. For women that had both procedures, that rose to 59.7%.

These findings came after researchers pored over medical records of more than 530,000 women in the United Kingdom to find a connection between fertility and the removal of an appendix or tonsils.

“Our first study produced such a surprising result – that women who had had their appendix removed actually appeared more likely to become pregnant – that we wanted to look at a wider group to establish whether this was really related to the removal of the appendix, which if left can be a cause of inflammation,” Shimi Sami, co-author of the University of Dundee, U.K., study told Medical News Today.

The study authors actually think the link is because of behavioral changes women in these categories make after their surgery. The link could also be traced to the removal of inflamed organs.

Interesting. Going to check to see what those behavioral changes were and report back!