Thursday, October 28, 2010

Book Review - PCOS and Your Fertility, by Colette Harris

Haven't posted in a while, so I thought I was get back into the swing of things with another book review.

I recently skimmed through, PCOS and Your Fertility, by Colette Harris, and I have to admit to being a little disappointed with at least the first 1/2 of the book... 

This book is heavy on the natural or alternative approach to healing, with discussion on herbal medicine, homeopathy and other alternative treatments, which can be great, and helpful, but I found the information a little biased towards these type of alternative therapies with a sort of thumbing of the nose at western medical practices - even though Harris' own contributing author utilized fertility drugs in getting pregnant.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not one to thumb my nose at any possible source of healing, from prescription drugs to reiki, particularly if I've tried it and it makes me feel better, so I get annoyed when practitioners try to convince me otherwise. 

The good: I think this book offers some useful advice on natural approaches to treatment and diet, as well as coping with grief/loss in the case of a miscarriage.  Harris also provides the reader with a useful chapter on the healthy PCOS pregnancy - something you don't see too often as most material on PCOS and fertility is focused on the getting pregnant part and not so much the being pregnant part.

Harris also speaks to empowering you, the PCOS patient, on not allowing yourself to be bullied or bossed around by your doctor.  She points out, what many of us have probably already realized, that keeping quiet in front of your doc will get you nowhere, and that sometimes it is just necessary to find someone new.

The moral of the story then: if you are interested in learning more about how natural fertility options can help you, this book will provide you with a nice, general picture of what's out there.  It also supplies a lot of potentially useful, detailed information on the PCOS diet, meal planning, and supplements.

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