Common Treatment for PCOS May Decrease Fertility
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) can be a frustrating condition. For many women, the only real symptom of PCOS is infertility. When you’re trying to conceive, then, PCOS can be a real hurdle to try to get past.
According to some new information on PCOS and fertility treatments, it’s possible that some of the fertility treatments used to help a woman with PCOS conceive may actually contribute to the problem.
It’s important, first of all, to understand what PCOS is. With PCOS, a woman’s body produces too much androgen. This leads to irregular menstrual cycles, as well as the uterine lining overgrowing.
One of the most common treatments for PCOS in women who are trying to get pregnant is to give the woman the hormone progestin. This hormone causes the lining of the uterus to shed. After this happens, the woman is typically given additional drugs in order to help stimulate ovulation.
In this particular study, however, women that did not receive the progestin hormone treatment were four times more likely to become pregnant than those women that did receive the treatment. In this study, about 20% of the women with PCOS who were not given the hormone were able to conceive, whereas only about 5% of the women with PCOS who were given progestin were able to conceive.
The study was published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, a reproductive health journal. It involved research from 16 different institutions, as well as the National Institute of Child Health and other organizations.
This obviously raises some serious concerns about how fertility specialists are treating women with PCOS who are trying to become pregnant. If the hormone therapy actually serves to decrease their odds of becoming pregnant, fertility doctors need to explore other options to help address the PCOS problems.
So, what do you think? Have you experienced difficulty trying to conceive with PCOS? What sorts of medical treatments did your health care provider try? What worked, or didn’t work, for you?
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