Actress Rebel Wilson and recent girlfriend of Busch heir Jacob Busch offered a candid and emotional message recently about her fertility struggles and a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) a health problem that affects about 10% of women of childbearing age.
Women with PCOS have hormonal imbalance and metabolism problems that may affect their overall health including infertility. You may be able to improve your fertility and reduce other PCOS symptoms by losing just 5% of your weight. Eat to fight PCOS – Reduce or eliminate sugary foods, carbs, and unhealthy fats. Replace with fresh and cooked fruit and vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils, fish, and chicken. Keep in mind, having PCOS doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant. The hard part will be changing habits. We’ve been there, we know. Sometimes just those simple diet changes can improve natural fertility – without meds. Otherwise, fertility medications and treatments like IUI or IVF can help.
While diet matters a lot with PCOS, age is still the biggest factor when addressing infertility.
STL Fertility’s Operations Director Dr. Maureen Schulte commented about both age-related infertility and PCOS, “While Rebel’s IG post mentioned PCOS, news articles added that she was 40 when she started thinking about family. If I could stress anything it’s understanding that age has the greatest impact on fertility.” Dr. Schulte added, “If starting a family sooner than later is not in the cards, I highly recommend freezing your eggs to preserve the highest quality and quantity of eggs for your future family. If you wait until your 40 it will be that much harder – meaning lower quality and quantity of eggs to utilize.”
”Dr. Molina Dayal, Medical Director at STL Fertility added, “It is so important for women to realize that no matter how healthy one is or feels, age is the most predictive factor when it comes to getting pregnant. There’s never a downside to being proactive about your reproductive health. If you have questions or concerns or are just curious, it’s okay to just come in for a consult to just talk. The earlier this is done the better.”
Read more about Rebel Wilson’s fertility experience: