Answer from: Halyna Strelko, MD
It is possible to get pregnant naturally with PCOS. Only the questions would be how often a woman has ovulation? If never, in this case it is better to proceed with stimulation, see a doctor and ask for help to proceed with medicated stimulation. It may give good results and the probability of pregnancy will be 40-50% per cycle. If a woman with PCOS is anovulatory and with an increased body mass index, she can try to lose weight (not a lot like 5,6,7 kilograms), try to do more physical activity – it provokes insulin resistance to decrease, so her body will become more insulin sensitive, it is decrees level of androgens and LH and sometimes ovulation will be restored and in such cases, there is a chance to become pregnant. So it is necessary to investigate the patient’s situation.
Answer from: Kate Davies, RN, BSc (Hons), FP Cert
Yes absolutely, the majority of women don’t need IVF to conceive. It might mean they need some help to regulate their ovulation and also to work on the other factors that are important when it comes to PCOS, lifestyle factors for example which can have a considerable impact on your ability to conceive. So yes it is absolutely possible to conceive naturally.
Answer from: Sibte Hassan, MBBS, FCPS, MRCOG, MSc
If they modify their lifestyle ,if they can optimize their BMI and weight – that is probably the main factor which improves the chances of pregnancy.
Answer from: Moses Batwala
A vast majority of women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome; as long as you can get them to start ovulating, and that could be just by lifestyle changes, diet, and exercise, for those women who have raised BMI, if they drop weight, they will start ovulating. Other women need tablets like Metformin that help them lose weight, and if they do, again, they can start ovulating because of that loss of weight. And even those who are of normal body weight or those who can’t even lose weight, giving them the SERM tablets, the Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators, over a course of six months 50% of them will get pregnant. And that’s of course, as long as their partner’s sperm count is normal as well. So the vast majority of them, and then those ones who don’t, and proceed on to IVF treatment also do very well. But that’s also depending on how old they are, but they will do justice. In my experience and the women who I have treated, they do just as well as women who don’t have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome in terms of their success in IVF.
