Woman with PCOS says that overhauling her diet helped her to conceive

A woman who was told she may never have children due to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has described how changing her diet helped her to conceive.

Chloe Hodson had suffered with irregular periods for years but was only diagnosed with the condition, which affects a woman's hormone levels, when she and her partner Jonathan starting trying for a baby. She was warned that it could affect her chances of conceiving and was advised to start fertility treatment straight away. Chloe's doctors also told her that she would need to lose weight to take the fertility medication and so she overhauled her diet. She replaced fast-food and microwaveable dinners, which she ate every day, with home-cooked meals. Above all, she credits cutting out sugar with helping her to eventually become pregnant. "The best thing I did was cut sugar out of my tea because I would always have one or two sugars in my tea, and I have five or six cups of it a day," she told The Mirror. Over the course of eight months she lost a stone and a half and was ready to begin treatment. She took a pregnancy test on a whim the night before she was due to start and to her shock, it was positive. "The aim was to lose the weight to start the fertility medication but it turned out just losing the weight in my case was just what I needed to boost my fertility." Chloe went on to give birth to a healthy little boy, Joel, in August of last year. She acknowledges that losing weight might not help everyone with PCOS but urged fellow sufferers not to give up hope. "Sometimes the weight loss does help. In my case it did. But it doesn't work for everybody," she said. "You need to stay on track, keep doing what the doctors are advising and even if it doesn't seem to be working, even if you need the medication, do it."