Women who suffer from PCOS often fear infertility or are under constant stress about it. Since they have already heard from their doctor that PCOS is going to create problems during pregnancy and they have read thousands of frightening articles on the internet that they are not going to be able to conceive or face infertility. But let me tell you that women with PCOS have roughly equal chances of pregnancies than any woman not suffering from it.
This constant fear of not being able to conceive and build a family is what has the most lasting impact on the psychology of the women and their psychological problems created by the hormonal imbalance and appearance are aggravated even more. And most women never come out of it. Even if they get pregnant they are in constant worry about what might happen to the baby and how is she going to cope up with the pregnancy. But the women need to think this through with a keep mind and understand that it is not impossible to get pregnant with PCOS many women have been able to conceive naturally and those who have not have resorted to some concepts for fertilization which have been extremely effective for them without causing much harm.
Like I have already discussed that women with PCOS have equal chances at pregnancy as compared to women not suffering from it. The women who do suffer from PCOS do require some extra effort like losing weight, getting healthy, eat healthy and align your ovulation with the time you are trying for pregnancy. Most women do start ovulating when they change their lifestyle and that happens naturally which is an indication that your body’s hormones are coming in control. It is of utmost importance that you lose weight and not the good or the healthy weight but the excess fat. Most women who have PCOS are obese and thus have a lot of health problems and people who have been obese start to show symptoms of PCOS. Many women do not find out that they are suffering from PCOS until they start trying to get pregnant and fail multiple times. This is because the symptoms can be confusing at a time that most definitely might have started during puberty.
If you have worked relentlessly, gained a healthy weight, have a good diet, and still face problems in ovulating then it is a sign that you should go for some fertility medications. The doctors mostly give you medications to which your body reacts in a perfect way considering your issues. If you take medications without being prescribed by the doctor thinking they are all the same, then it can be dangerous for you because some women do not react well to certain medications and hormonal imbalance in your body could be aggravated which is the cause why you are not ovulating. However, the most common medications that the doctors give are metformin, Clomid or Clomiphene Citrate, Letrozole, and gonadotropins. Usually, a combination of metformin and litrozole works best but sometimes might cause certain complications.
If these medications also do not work, it was not your last hope and you still have many methods with which you can conceive. There are many assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) which you can experiment with and which would work. They are IUI (Intrauterine Insemination), IVF (In vitro fertilization), and IVM (In Vitro Maturation).
IUI or Intrauterine Insemination is when specially washed semen is directly placed inside the uterus via a catheter. This is the most effective if you are ovulating but you are still unable to become pregnant. It might be helpful in those cases but if you are not ovulating at all then you should look for other solutions because this is just going to reduce the sperms which now have to try less to reach the eggs and get infused. This usually happens when you suffer from mostly a dry vagina or your partner’s sperms are somewhat weak or there is some kind of problem in your partner. So, it is mostly not concerned with the problem of ovulation.
IVF or In Vitro Fertilization is a little more helpful when it comes to irregular ovulation. What happens is that your eggs will be taken out whenever you ovulate and if you do not get pregnant naturally, then these eggs are fertilized with the sperms in artificial and protected conditions and then placed inside the uterus for getting attached to the placenta. You have to be monitored routinely and hormone levels are to be checked now and then because it may happen that since you produce more androgens, it may attack the fertilized egg and thus making all the processes go in vain. It is very dangerous for the embryo to come in contact with excess hormones in your body.
If you do not ovulate at all, there is also a method for that and it is the IVM or the In Vitro Maturation. In this process, the immature or partially matured eggs are taken out from your ovaries. This is because the main reason you are facing problems is that your eggs and not able to become mature in the conditions that your body provides which is an excess amount of hormones. So, these eggs are taken out, artificially matured, and then placed inside the women’s body again for the same process to happen. Women who undergo IVM have to take little to no doses of fertilization drugs since the eggs are artificially matured and there is no use in forcing ovulation.
Women may also suffer from ovarian hyper-stimulation which has to be kept in mind whenever you try any fertility drug. Sometimes women develop Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome or OHSS in which the ovaries overreact to fertility medication given to them. This can be highly dangerous for women and thus they have to be monitored closely.
There are extremely low chances that you will ever need an egg donor in the condition but if other aspects such as age and genetic disorders are concerned, you may have to go for egg donors.
Other processes include Ovarian wedge resection and laparoscopic drilling which are equally harmful to women and you should not be resorting to these methods thinking they are your last hopes.
Ovarian wedge resection is when the doctors surgically remove a part of your ovary or a tissue of the ovary to reduce the androgens produced. On the other hand, Laparoscopic drilling is when the doctor surgically drills at certain points in your ovary. Both of them promote regular ovulation and getting pregnant naturally but they are not advisable because of the ovary scarring that happens. There might not be lasting effects of this because now there are fewer functional areas in your ovaries because some of them are removed.
Thus, now you know that there are complications but they will definitely help you in achieving pregnancy and it can be a little hard but it is not impossible. You need to consult your doctor at every step that you take and proper guidance and the right methods will help you not only while achieving pregnancy but also during the complications that arise during pregnancy. Always, get the entire information about the benefits as well as the dangers that any process poses because it is your health that we are talking about and the baby is going to sustain and survive if you are healthy.
