Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) affects one in eight women in New Zealand and is a leading cause of infertility , according to the World Health Organisation. But research including a recent study from the University of Queensland shows women with PCOS undergoing fertility treatment have the same birth rate as those without. So what does having PCOS really mean for your fertility? When Clare Goodwin was diagnosed with PCOS at 24, she immediately opened up a bank account to start saving for fertility treatment - even though she wasn’t planning to get pregnant “anytime soon”.
“All I really got told was, ‘You’re going to struggle to get pregnant’, and that was it, with no further explanation. And so my immediate assumption was, ‘I am infertile’,” she tells the NZ Herald . Goodwin, a qualified nutritionist who’s since written a book, Getting Pregnant with PCOS , and founded online clinic Ovie to help women manage their PCOS symptoms, says she wishes her doctor had reassured her about her ability to conceive.
“My doctor said, ‘Just come back and see us when you want to get pregnant’. It’s very assumptive that everybody can afford medical treatment or that everybody even wants medical treatment,” she says. “Fertility treatment can be really effective, and that’s amazing - I love that it’s an option for women with PCOS.
“But what I think we need to be better at is saying, ‘There are multiple options for you. You’re not infertile. It’s .
