From PCOS to Parenthood

Through lived experience, she has developed an innovative, holistic approach that incorporates naturopathy, nutritional therapy, natural family planning and the emotional freedom technique and has a 69–89 per cent success rate.

“I grew up in Broken Hill, a remote, red-dirt town in Australia. My dad was a miner and, even up to the 1960s, women weren’t able to work. Nutrition education was pretty much non-existent; I grew up only eating vegetables that came in a tin.

I studied science subjects at school and got high marks. My friend started seeing a naturopath and taking supplements, so I went to do work experience there. The naturopath showed me how herbs work, and I sat in on meetings with some of her clients and it was beautiful, so I got my qualifications and became a naturopath GP.

I decided to have children at 23, which is when I was diagnosed with PCOS, and told I’d never be able to conceive without fertility drugs or IVF. At the time, the press about IVF was very negative, so I was terrified. I left my home town, moved to the city and – years later – to the UK, where I met my husband-to-be, Tim, and decided to try and have a baby.

I was only having two periods a year, and knew I’d have to do something about that. I studied at Foresight, the preconceptual care charity, and with the Natural Fertility Teachers Association and read pretty much every fertility book that existed!

Foresight taught me all the basics; avoiding coffee and alcohol, consider mercury in fish and so on, and – very importantly – that the process is more successful if both halves of the couple get involved. I managed to increase the frequency of my period from once every eight months to every 35 days, and eventually had my own son without IVF or a single fertility drug. It took me choosing to make positive choices. I’d go to parties where people were playing hard and I was off in the corner asking for a teaspoon so I could take my herbs!

When you train to be a naturopath, you learn a huge range of subjects; anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, biochemistry, then I took modules that included nutritional therapy and neuropathy. I focus on evidence-based medicine. I’d built this skillset, and became a one-stop shop for people with fertility issues; I try and treat clients holistically, everything is based on their lifestyles. I’ll make a plan; review any information from their failed IVF attempts, check their sleeping patterns, their bowel movements, their periods, their environment and chemical use in their house – cleaning and laundry products – read their food diary, and determine if they have any anxiety or panic through the day. I’ll do genetic tests to see if there are any mutations. I’ll look at the vaginal microbiome and gut health which can affect sperm morphology.

It’s important to focus on improving your emotional health and relationships. It’s all about feeling better on the journey, getting healthy and confident and building the healthiest baby you can. I teach people how to feel less shitty when they see a Facebook feed full of baby announcements or someone walking down the street with a buggy when they’ve just had a miscarriage. It feels as if we need a movement to raise awareness that asking people when they’re going to have a baby – or another baby – can be the cruelest thing you could ask a woman who’s trying to conceive. It’s not just chit-chat, and she may not be choosing to not have a baby. The preconception period – four months prior to conception – is vital to making sure you have a pregnancy with fewer complications. I see it as an opportunity to build the best castle for your baby to grow and live. And the postnatal period is important to consider too; building your baby’s microbiome, and bouncing back from pregnancy, which is particularly important if you’re a single mother!

My job comes with some incredible highs, although I’ve had to build that practitioner-patient barrier or I’d be a blubbering mess. I have to bring the happiness to the next person. I’ve just had a 47-year-old patient get pregnant, which was incredible. And I do get attached; one patient’s husband had found that he had a brain tumour and was dying. They had done four rounds of IVF. She came to see me six months after he’d passed, and she’d done another round of IVF that had failed. She had one vial left of his frozen sperm, and we had to get her totally mentally and physically prepared; it took eight months to get her ready. She was so committed, my heart was on the floor for her. But it worked out! And her daughter is now six.

People need teams; I’m constantly referring people out. I’d like to see somebody like me sitting in every IVF clinic who could advise all the confused people that come in that have read stuff on the internet, self-diagnosed and taken supplements that may not be helping them.

I can never guarantee a baby, but what I can guarantee is that, after working with me, you’ll be the healthiest you’ve ever been, you’ll be happier on the journey, and you’ll feel more in control. My role is to say, look, we prepared you for this, we prepared your husband for this, you’ve put forward the absolute best egg and sperm that you could get in your situation. You just have to be confident and trust that it’s going to work out for you. But I’m a realist, I do like to be upfront with people. However, you also have to still give them a glimmer of hope as well. It’s about keeping people in the moment; if they can just get from the next day to the next with their pregnancy.

I’m also working on a new project; a membership club for people with polycystic ovaries. It’s called From PCOS to Parenthood and it’ll involve helping people who were in the same situation as me, help them get their periods back, and how to be happy and healthy on their jounrey, as well as supporting the babies through those vital first 1000 days of life!”

Find Kat at birds-and-bees.co.uk