Have you ever been curious about how PCOS can affect fertility and starting a family? We have our Toronto naturopath, Dr. Julia Segal here today who is explaining more about PCOS and how this can affect pregnancy, and how naturopathic medicine can help those looking for fertility support.
Can PCOS affect your chances of getting pregnant?
Yes. However, this is one of the easiest obstacles to fertility to treat, and it doesn’t always create an obstacle to conceiving. It can cause periods of not ovulating and not having menstrual cycles. Other reasons it can affect fertility include poor pregnancy outcomes such as miscarriage, and can lead to low grade inflammation and poor egg quality which makes it harder to get pregnant.
Next we asked Dr. Julia Segal how naturopathic medicine can help those with PCOS who are looking for fertility support.
How can fertility support help if you have PCOS?
Naturopathic care during the pre-conception, fertility and pregnancy journey can support you in achieving pregnancy. An important part of this is determining what the root cause of the PCOS is, as this can actually be several different syndromes. For example it can be problems with insulin resistance and blood sugar. Or it can be inflammation causing the issues and we need to find the cause of the inflammation. Lastly we need to see if there are hormonal problems produced in the adrenal glands causing the dysfunction. The fertility support provided by our naturopathic doctors addresses the individual, rather than focusing on the label. We might give a herbal supplement to support a hormonal problem. Or we might work on diet for the blood sugar. For inflammation we might do a food intolerance test to look for the source of inflammation. Really, we use your history as a patient to make the final choices of what to do, but we can also do that while focusing on other important aspects of fertility like egg quality, stress and sleep, and uterine health and lining.