KatCarney

INSIDE OUT - Food can make you pregnant.

By Penny Fray.
631 words
20 August 2002
Daily Post (Liverpool)
20
English
(c) The Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Ltd, 2002.

A new diet not only helps women lose weight but conceive as well


JOANNE Hill told her husband Andy that if she didn't have a baby by the time she was 35, she would divorce him.

Unable to conceive as a result of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), she was afraid that he would eventually become resentful of being childless.

An estimated eight million women, including famously Victoria Beckham and Jules Oliver, suffer from ovarian cysts which can cause infertility.

However, since discovering a pioneering new diet, Joanne, a 32year-old sales adviser from Wavertree in Liverpool, has given birth to a beautiful baby girl and is relieved that her marriage has been saved.

After 13 years of trying to conceive - and numerous failed attempts at IVF - she can hardly hide her glee. Her daughter Libby was born on April 17, three weeks early, weighing 5lb 6oz.

She can't resist cuddling her baby. "When you've been trying for a child as long as I have, you have to keep touching her to make sure it's real," she explains.

More than three million women like Joanne suffer from severe PCOS, a condition which involves having about eight cysts on each ovary. In its severest form, the condition leads to a hormone imbalance that causes hair growth, acne, massive weight gain and even infertility.

The condition recently reached the headlines when Victoria Beckham blamed PCOS for her weight fluctuations. While Jules, Jamie Oliver's wife, admitted that she had to seek help to conceive as a result of the disorder.

Interfering with the body's metabolism, PCOS results in weight gain. And combined with irregular and often non-existent periods, more than half of sufferers have fertility problems.

The fat around Joanne's uterus was blamed for her inability to have a baby. Her only chance was to lose weight. And she tried everything from pills to classes to shed the pounds with no avail. "I even considered having a gastio by-pass," she says. Her last option was to find a dietician who specialised in PCOS.

A chance search on the Internet brought her into contact with Norah Lane, who had pioneered the revolutionary Vitaline diet.

This meant eating vitamin B rich foods such as chicken, fish or leafy green vegetables every 15 minutes, to replace what had been lost through taking the drug metformin - which eases the symptoms of PCOS.

Norah, a Manchester-based dietician who holds a clinic on Wednesday in Allerton, also encourages clients to follow a low fat, low carbohydrate and protein rich menu to keep the weight down and energy levels up.

And with hot food going through the body quicker than cold meals, Joanne was advised to eat vegetables rather than salads and avoid processed meals.

Just a few weeks into the new diet she had lost more than three stone and was pregnant, joining a list of other success stories.

"We're not saying everyone will get pregnant without IVF on this diet but they will definitely stand a better chance," says Nora.

Joanne was completely shocked when she first found out that she was going to have a baby.

"I did the pregnancy test twice just to make sure," she says. "A consultant once told me to accept that I'd never have children - leaving my husband and me devastated.

"Although he said that it didn't matter, it bothered me. I felt so insecure that I even told him that I wanted a divorce if I didn't conceive by the time I was 35. I was scared of him resenting me for not giving him children.

"Now after years of hopelessness I am a mum and I'm delighted."

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