I have just emailed the BFS asking why a woman such as myself who eats nothing but fruit and veg who doesn't drink or smoke and excercises daily being more aware of my health than any other woman I know cannot have IVF under thier guidelines as I am carrying an extra 5 stone that my endocrinologist admits I will never lose.
I suggest every woman here does the same. There must be other factors in assessing a woman's health other than her BMI.
I am also annoyed at the BBC who gave the internet news strory a picture of a woman force feeding her child a huge plate of food, as though we are all going to stuff fish and chips into our kids mouths.
Here's the pic http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image..._eating203.jpg
Here's the story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5296200.stm
Anyone seen the news today? PCOS was even mentioned specifically in regards to guidelines about obese women being refused IVF on the NHS.
What did they say about PCOS, I can't find reference to it. Do they say we will exempt from a blanket ban and have more varied tests or that it mainly applies to us?
Yes but on one hand it makes sense to get as healthy as possible whilst preparing for pregnancy. If this means losing weight then surely thats a good thing? You are much more likely to suffer from complications during pregnancy if you are obese. And why would they spend money on something with a low success rate if the women could lose weight and improve their success rates?? Just throwing other opinions into the pan- I know if I was going for IVF I would want to increase my chances of it working by losing weight.
On the other hand, it might send me into a downward spiral of comfort eating thinking that my last chance to have a child had been taken away from me.
From a cost point of view- surely its better to spend the money on women who have a higher chance of it working and who will have a relatively low risk pregnancy? This would save the NHS money during the treatment and also during the pregnancy. But then why should a womens chance to have a child be taken away just because she is a bit bigger?
Hmm I dont know what to think!!
__________________ Naomi 24, Chris 28, DD Lola
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Yes but on one hand it makes sense to get as healthy as possible whilst preparing for pregnancy. If this means losing weight then surely thats a good thing? You are much more likely to suffer from complications during pregnancy if you are obese. And why would they spend money on something with a low success rate if the women could lose weight and improve their success rates?? Just throwing other opinions into the pan- I know if I was going for IVF I would want to increase my chances of it working by losing weight.
On the other hand, it might send me into a downward spiral of comfort eating thinking that my last chance to have a child had been taken away from me.
From a cost point of view- surely its better to spend the money on women who have a higher chance of it working and who will have a relatively low risk pregnancy? This would save the NHS money during the treatment and also during the pregnancy. But then why should a womens chance to have a child be taken away just because she is a bit bigger?
Hmm I dont know what to think!!
This is the same thing i was trying to explain in the TTC thread...they are only telling us this to maximise our chance because they are paying for it and afterall we are the one going to be upset if it didnt happen.
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but on the other hand BMIs and weight are a load of rubbish. I was out of my prefered BMI range when i was the skinniest i have ever been and i didn't really look overweight, plus i was really fit and healthy. I think a lot of things are put on BMI without other considerations.
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Name Carrie, married to Steven for 3 years, Age: 31
DS Dylan born 10/06/07
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Experts advise ban on free IVF for obese women By Kate Kelland
Wed Aug 30, 8:55 AM ET
Severely overweight women should be denied access to free fertility treatment in England and Wales and obese women must lose weight before being offered the chance to try IVF, experts said on Wednesday.
They also said in a report that no woman over the age of 40 should be allowed to start National Health Service-funded fertility treatment, and that single women and same sex couples should be offered the same access as heterosexual couples.
The British Fertility Society's recommendations, which suggest women with a body mass index of 36 or more should be denied IVF treatment on the NHS, go further than current NHS guidelines which say overweight women should be warned of the health risks but do not impose a ban on treatment.
The BFS said women with a body mass index of 29 or more should be advised to undergo a program of diet and exercise before being allowed IVF treatment.
"Obese women are less likely to get pregnant and more likely to encounter health problems. It makes sense to address obesity before seeking fertility treatment," Richard Kennedy of the BFS told the BBC.
"The NHS is already stopping women who are obese from having fertility treatment," he added.
"What we are saying is that they should be less stringent and more consistent with how they apply this."
The BFS said its recommendations were aimed at tackling what it said was "a wide disparity" in the social criteria used by different NHS trusts to decide whether treatment should be allowed.
It said single women, lesbian couples and people who already have children from a previous relationship should not be excluded from NHS treatment.
"Continued inequality of access to treatment is unacceptable in a state-funded health service and the source of considerable distress to a great number of people with fertility problems," Dr Mark Hamilton, chairman of the BFS, said in a statement.
The society produced its report after surveying 64 licensed fertility clinics in England and Wales during the summer of 2005. Full results of the survey will be published in the Human Fertility journal later this month.
I was absolutely furious and upset when I woke up this morning to see this on the news, I am still fuming now several hours later.
It is one thing to say yes, we do need to be a heathier weight to be able to generally be able to conceive.
That would be a fair statement if only most the imbeciles, I mean "doctors" in this country would understand and recognise the symptoms that causes the weight and offer the CORRECT help to achieve being healthier.
Seriously, when you're shoved from pillar to post with these problems, mis-diagnosed and ill-advised for many years on end, which actually makes our weight, IR, more missed AF's leading to more cycts how = infertlity, then how in hell they have the right to say all this I have no idea.
This has caused me quite alot of upset today and I am not needing IVF, god only knows what hell this has caused others today
I was thinking of emailing GMTV of somewhere asking them to follow it up?
__________________ Age: 26
DX: May 2004
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Walking & Low Carbing to 146lbs - nearly there!
July 07 : 167lbs
Sept 07: 153lbs
Nov 07: 147lbs
May 08: 144lbs
July 08: 140lbs
Hello,
the whole thing makes me sooo mad!!!cazza i know what you mean i think bmi is alot of crap i am 5ft 8 and 13 stone 3 when i was 12 stone which is probably the thinnest i get i am still classed as out of my bmi range!
mel x
This has made me really angry today, it’s yet another UK have a go at fat people….. Deny them treatment because they all stuff there face to much and are a risk!!!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrr articles like this really annoy the hell out of me.
Thin people can undergo several rounds of IVF and have no success just the same as someone with a BMI higher and classed as Obese!
So I am single, and I am desperate for children of my own, hitting 30 next year I know I am likely to use fertility treatment to have children, of course I will have to fund this myself. I also want to lose 100lbs before I consider myself to be healthy enough to try, even then that will only take me down to 18 stone.
It’s just another way of the NHS saving money, and so lets all have a go at fat people, what next stop weight loss surgery completed and tell people they are too much a risk for the operation!
Maybe the government should stop spending money on all those Anorexic clinics as well, after all that is self inflicted! Why help those who starve themselves with NHS money when it could fund drug treatment…. Let’s face it being Anorexic is no different than being overweight…. Talk about discrimination!
I think we should all bombard the BBC and tell them this stinks!
Actually just thinking on it, they would be wrong to say someone with PCOS is not allowed to have IVF on the NHS, regardless of what there guidelines are.
Under the Disability Discrimination Act; PCOS would be covered if you have had it for over 12 months. So in theory you could claim it as discrimination against the NHS under the DDA for saying you are not allowed treatment!
But sometimes when you need an operation they wont give it too you until you have lost weight as its too much of a risk to have the anaesthetic. So surely its reasonable to say someone who is larger is at too much risk to have a healthy pregnancy until they have lost some weight??
Im just playing devils advocate here....
I know I didnt fall pregnant until I had lost weight and my BMI when I fell pregnant was 34 (just under very obese I think). Previously my BMI was over 40 (cant remember what it was exactly) and I swear there was no way I would have fallen pregnant at that (higher)weight. Surely thats mother natures way of ensuring I was healthy enough for pregnancy???
But being completly honest if I needed IVF and was being denied it because of my weight I think that would drive me to comfort eat. And make the problem worse ending up in a vicious circle.
__________________ Naomi 24, Chris 28, DD Lola
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a lady interviewed on BBC news this morning did say women with PCOS shouldn't be allowed IVF due to the slim success rates. i was fuming.
nature makes us infertile, nature makes us fat so the govt decides that we have such awful genes we'd be better not reproducing. we don't want more fat people running (or waddling) around britain now, do we?!
I think it would be fairer to say no-one should have IVF on the NHS. (And I know I'm sticking my head above the parapet with that one - and I'm not playing devil's advocate!)
There is no sense in which boob jobs, IVF, or a host of other procedures currently available on the NHS (if you can convince them you'll go nuts without it) are vital operations. My dad has cancer. He's waited weeks and weeks for a radiology appointment.
I know I have my kids (and plenty of 'em!) so you might think 'It's easy for her to say that!' But I have also lived subfertility - and I wasn't obese, or overweight, just had really bad PCOS. I was a size 8 (US 4) and it took me 8 years to conceive my first son. I didn't use any NHS resources. I didn't even get my subfertility investigated. My choice. We wanted a baby for those 8 years but had to accept it wasn't going to happen. Then it did happen - of it's own accord. If it hadn't - I'd have had to live with it.
Having lived in a country with no NHS - my view's always been we're so lucky to have it. We don't realise what a great thing it is because we've never lived in a country where you pay thousands of pounds for even the most basic health care, we walk in off the street and demand (and usually get!) whenever we want it!
I also think smokers should have limitations. They not only choose to smoke but inflict cancer on other people who have to breathe it in. It does seem a bit sick that smokers are allowed IVF so long as they listen to a pep talk to warn them off smoking. Those people are happy to kill other people who are unlucky enough to inhale their smoke. what's that about? I'm not going to waylay a passerby and stuff a cream cake in their gob until I've furred up their arteries enough to kill them, am I? So I think it's best to say - no, no IVF for anyone on the NHS.
I used to teach and I witnessed more than one kid taunted by others for having a 'fat mum'. Kids can be cruel. Also, you need to be fit to be a mum. For the same reason, I can't believe they were even contemplating giving free IVF to women over 40. And I had my last baby at 42 - with severe PCOS, and NO medical intervention... How do I know it was severe? One period a year - if lucky - was the slight clue! But I know from hard experience, motherhood is tough after 40.
It's an amazing thing to be able to go to a doctor's surgery, or hospital any day of the week and be treated - free at the point of use, whether you're unemployed or a millionaire. It's one of the greatest things about this country. Try living somewhere where a bottle of aspirins cost £2.50 and if your kid cuts his chin and needs 3 sticthes, you're faced with a bill of £100 (as happened to us once), and that only if you're prepared to go to a rubbish clinic like summat from the 1950s full of crack addicts - then tell me the NHS is useless!
I do also think a good way of cutting costs would be to sack most of the administrators and 'suits' in the NHS - there's far too many of them.
But there's no sense in which IVF is essential. It's tough if you're childless, but not the end of the world. And not a medical necessity when people with cancer die waiting for treatment. IVF is also not the only way to conceive. There is absolutely no doubt weight loss dramatically improves your chances of conception, so there is a sense in which IVF could even be the lazy option.
(Why have a kid if you're not going to be fit enough to run after it?) Mine have me running about from dawn to dusk - and when I think what a mother I was when I was obese, to how I am now I'm healthier - I feel sad for my kids I ever inflicted that on them. Recently, my boys were at the seaside. I spent all morning running around on the beach, in the sea, then building a monster sandcastle with them. At the end of it, my 13 year old turned to me and said *You're the only mum here that has played with her kids all morning. The other mums just want to lie there and sunbathe* - and he was right! But I was a bit shocked at only 13 he'd actually noticed that. It makes you wonder what kids think when their mum is less active because she gets tired too easily, etc. I know at my heaviest I kidded myself I was quite fit (I did 10,000 steps a day after all, how could I possibly be lazy? I remember thinking). But if I'm honest, I too would have been lying or sitting there, just pleased with myself I'd made it down the 199 steps at Whitby and resting all day to have the strength to get back up them!
Weight loss is NOT impossible - just slower and much harder for women with PCOS. And once you achieve that conception can happen more easily - even if you wait 8 years for it! Once that first baby comes, the others definitely are easier to conceive.
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NHS Guidelines for IVF 
