Hazel Leonard, Founder of The Prepared Pineapple and Fertility Educator, joins Maria Botros on the Tell Me Why podcast to talk about the UAE’s laws on egg-freezing and all things fertility.
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Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
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00:00So in 2021 the UAE changed the laws on egg freezing. Prior to 2021 if you're a single
00:07female you couldn't freeze your eggs. There were certain cases with married couples with
00:14health reasons that it could be done but if you're a single woman it wasn't possible.
00:18Now it is possible to freeze your eggs and it could be because of health reasons.
00:25If you're in the case where you need chemotherapy, chemotherapy has a detrimental impact on fertility
00:31so it's recommended that you have your eggs frozen beforehand.
00:36But also for social reasons you have that opportunity as well.
00:44All right we are back. This is Tell Me Why. I'm Maria Botros and you know that we love to address
00:51any of the topics that have to do with well-being, health, women's health specifically and today
00:58I'm joined by Hazel Leonard who is a fertility educator and a midwife and she's going to be
01:04talking to us about fertility, about egg freezing. We're going to discuss everything that has to do
01:09with like the the process of conceiving a child I guess if that's fair to say. First of all how are
01:16you? I'm good how are you? Yeah all good all good it's lovely having you in the studio. Thank you
01:21so much for having me. We've been speaking a lot the past few days about the topic and about what
01:27it is to be a fertility educator and I think that's the number one question I had when I
01:32first spoke to you and I think I want you to explain that to our audience like what does it
01:37mean like what do you do as a fertility educator and how did you get into it? No it's a really good
01:42question because it's not a role that everybody's kind of heard of. So firstly I'm a midwife
01:48so I trained in the UK as a midwife. I've worked in women's health for 14 years now and then in
01:562015 after we were married we decided to start trying for a baby and that didn't go as smoothly
02:03as we would have liked and that basically led to five years of fertility treatments, infertility
02:10you know exploring this kind of road and then I did additional training in fertility awareness,
02:16fertility education because one of the biggest things I realized is as a midwife I support
02:21people throughout their pregnancy and there's a lot of education involved so there's a lot of talking
02:27you know you've got prenatal classes, you've got the newborn side, you've got the breastfeeding
02:32support. When I was going through my IVF journey or our IVF journey there was nothing. There was
02:40even one doctor said I said have you got any information about what we were talking about and
02:44he said no people don't read it so I had to use Google and I'm already a healthcare professional
02:50I'm already in this kind of field and I really didn't know much about it so my role is to support
02:56people through the process and it's supporting people from when they're trying to conceive
03:01learning more about our bodies. We really aren't taught very much about female reproduction, how it
03:07works, when you ovulate, how to know if you're ovulating, what's normal, red flags right up
03:13and to when should you see a doctor, when should you be concerned, what questions can you ask and
03:19then going into fertility treatment do you need it right now, is it something you want to do
03:25and then the process of that because it's quite a long process and there's lots of factors involved
03:30in fertility treatment so I'm there as a support person basically to help guide educate and
03:36empowerment is a big thing that I feel passionate about. Yes I think that's lovely because
03:42you mentioned this and it's funny because we all google symptoms or whatever it is that we're
03:48going through and I think it's safe to say that you cannot depend on the internet alone and
03:52obviously there are so many conflicting opinions and research you know that you
03:59don't know what to trust and you don't know what to follow and I think that's why your role is
04:03crucial. Can you tell us a bit more about your experience with fertility like when did you
04:10notice that you had red flags like what were the red flags that you looked out for? No that's a
04:15really good question so we were kind of trying for like six I think it was about six or eight months
04:21and then we went to see a doctor and we had some investigations done and everything came back as
04:28clear and then we looked at doing IUI which is a milder form of fertility treatment you kind of go
04:37along with your natural cycle but the success rates of that are quite low and then after
04:44about a year we did our first round of IVF and that didn't result in very good quality embryos I
04:51think we had one at the time no reason why we couldn't understand it fast forward another couple
04:57of years we did another cycle same thing happened we had enough eggs you know everything seemed fine
05:05and then it wasn't until we we had the first cycle in the UAE the second one in the UK and then we
05:10looked at the UAE again spoke to an amazing doctor here he's he's fantastic and excuse me
05:18and he actually sat down looked through all my tests and looked at my husband and said right what
05:22about you because he'd been ignored throughout this whole process and when it came down to it
05:30that was where the the problem lied so there wasn't many red flags and that was difficult
05:36unexplained infertility is a diagnosis and one I find very frustrating because
05:43often it's not unexplained it's just you haven't looked deeply enough right and then when we found
05:49that complication we addressed it we fixed it as much as we could and the last round of IVF resulted
05:57in three good quality embryos and the first one is our three-year-old and the second one is our
06:05six-month-old so amazing it was you know it all worked out okay in the end congratulations I just
06:11want to say that and to be honest what you just mentioned is like the core of most of like the
06:19I don't want to say it's it's a misdiagnosis yeah but it's in a way it is people tend to ignore the
06:25male factor and focus on the woman yes when really it's a shared responsibility and and
06:31studies have proven more and more that it's it I don't want to say 50-50 I don't know the numbers
06:36exactly but it almost is yeah when you're looking at fertility complications subfertility and
06:41infertility yeah 40 percent is on women 40 percent is on men and then you have 20 percent that's a
06:48combination of the two right right and I see that's the thing like I mean I think do you feel
06:54like more and more people are aware of that and they are addressing both now or is it slowly okay
07:00slowly okay one of the biggest things that we've we've seen that's hit the headlines is that sperm
07:07counts have dropped by 50 percent since 1970 that's huge that's a huge number and that is kind
07:15of you know raising eyebrows and people are starting to look but like you say fertility
07:20when you talk about it it's still very much a woman's issue you know it's and you hear that
07:26who's you know who's the problem with or she can't get pregnant or the language is very
07:32female focused so we really need to concentrate on both parties because it takes two people to
07:38make a baby that's lovely I love that you mentioned that that it's always directed at the woman and I
07:43feel like that's that's very true but why do you think that there is a lot of fertility issues I
07:51remember we had Luciano on the show and he was saying we use the word infertility loosely and
07:56I feel like it shouldn't it's like the last stage of course so we should always say fertility issues
08:01and that's why I'm using it yeah absolutely but yeah so why do you think that there's a rise is
08:06it like a mix of environmental factors or is it our habits or lifestyle yeah I think it's it's
08:12multifaceted as well so we're looking at age you know if we look at our generation versus
08:18our grandparents for example right the the norm was you get married 18 19 20 you have your first
08:25baby you are cooking everything from scratch in the home there's drinking smoking lifestyle factors
08:33are less so you didn't used to see as many fertility issues because people were younger
08:38they ate differently they lived their lives differently we're waiting now until we're older
08:43we are especially women we're a lot more independent we choose when we want to have a
08:49family rather than when it's expected of us but unfortunately with that as we get older our egg
08:55quality does decline the same with men men after 35 women's health women's egg quality can start
09:03to go down after 45 men's sperm quality goes down right so age plays a factor like I say lifestyle
09:11drinking smoking what we're eating exposure to toxins and chemicals there's a lot of research
09:16coming out about this now which is you know it's hard to get away from but we can do things to
09:22help that right so yeah there's lots of changes in in our lives now that are impacting our fertility
09:32okay and what are some of the solutions I mean what can people do to slow down the
09:39infertility or the fertility issues or to avoid them as much as possible so I'm a big big believer
09:46in fertility preparation so when we're looking at generating new sperm generating mature eggs
09:53it takes about 72 days so anything you do today is going to impact the egg you release in three
10:00months time oh you can make positive changes to how you're eating smoking we know is a huge causes
10:08a lot of oxidative damage and stress to fertility so stopping smoking reducing alcohol changing how
10:15you eat cooking from scratch rather than ordering takeaways exposure to toxins and chemicals you can
10:21do small things like don't heat your lunch up in plastic containers because although
10:26it might be bpa-free it's been swapped with another chemical and that seeps into our food
10:32use phthalate free products like makeups perfumes all those kind of kind of things
10:40there is you know a limit to what we can do I know people that have
10:44it's caused so much stress and anxiety removing all these things that it's almost not worth
10:50the you know the stress or the hassle yeah yeah another big area as well is
10:57early better health care because again especially for women recently there was something recently
11:05that there was five times more funding into erectile dysfunction that impacts 19% of men
11:13one nine versus premenstrual syndrome that impacts 90% of women wow five times more funding
11:21into research that's shocking it's terrible if you look at things like endometriosis pcos they
11:27impact one in ten women yet it takes seven to ten years to receive a diagnosis those things
11:34impact fertility massively so better health care better research better funding earlier diagnosis
11:42are going to help treatments are going to help the women that are suffering from these conditions
11:47it's going to help with their ovulation obviously endometriosis impacts the uterine environment
11:54you know we need to improve those things as well to help improve fertility yes unbelievable like
12:01these statistics are are yeah mind-blowing I just I can't believe that till this day
12:07this seems to be the case I mean you would think that things have changed or you know medicine has
12:14advanced enough for us to pay enough attention but again as you said it's very male focused and
12:21I remember we also had Sophie Smith from NAPTA Health and she was saying that a lot of the
12:28research and the medical trials are also I mean most of them are conducted on men yes only 19%
12:34of these medical trials involve women and that's a big part of it I mean if you're not if we're not
12:39getting data on women then how are we supposed to treat them or diagnose anything exactly or any of
12:44the diseases yeah and there's that social element of women are expected to deal with pain it's
12:50normal you know it's normal you've got really heavy periods yes that's normal yeah you know
12:54they're crippling you can't leave the house oh that's fine that's fine yeah it's not you know
12:59and these as women we need to push and advocate for ourselves and feel empowered and know our
13:04bodies and know what's right and know what's not which is kind of where I come in agreed okay so we
13:10spoke about the solutions in terms of uh you know lifestyle and habits and and what we should do to
13:16prepare for the fertility journey uh now what are the solutions for those who may have fertility
13:22issues like what what are the steps is it just IVF right off the bat or is there like are are there
13:28other things that people can do yeah I mean they definitely can um like I always say that IVF is
13:34often offered out like candy okay it's you don't have to take it um some people want to some people
13:40are like I don't want to wait I just want to get this done um and are quite happy to go through
13:46the process but the the questions I would ask have you had detailed investigations for both you and
13:53your partner um you know do you know what the problem is there are some problems like if you've
13:59got um blocked fallopian tubes for example if you've had your fallopian tubes removed for whatever
14:04reason you're going to have to have IVF it's not going to be possible to receive to achieve a
14:10spontaneous conception um unless you have you know that process but is the issue treatable is it a
14:18hormonal imbalance do you need medication to help with ovulation um for your partner they um there's
14:26something called a varicoseal that's in the testicles that can impact sperm quality does
14:30that need treatment does that need removing um is it a case that you both have very poor lifestyle
14:36and you need to focus on on that element so you don't need to dive straight in I know that some
14:42people especially if you're over the age of 35 might feel like oh my gosh I have to do this now
14:48but you still have time you know waiting an extra six months three months is not going to make
14:53much difference to your fertility um so yeah it doesn't have to be the first step it really should
14:59be the last step and make sure you've explored all the other areas first okay and it's it's funny that
15:06you mentioned age because that was one of the questions that I had in mind do you believe in
15:11that quote unquote biological clock I do and I don't um I think there's a bit of scaremongering
15:19that happens um and I think especially with women we're told that after the age of 35 you need to
15:26hurry up you need to preserve your fertility you know but the day you turn 36 your fertility
15:32doesn't dive off a cliff yeah I know you know you can there's many there's millions of women out
15:36there that that still achieves spontaneous pregnancies and they're 38 39 40 um if we're
15:43looking at statistics and you're 30 years old you have a 20 chance of conceiving each month
15:49versus a 40 year old has a 5 chance of conceiving each month so that you do have a lesser chance
15:56but it's not impossible right so we do um you know recommend with egg freezing you are better
16:03off freezing your eggs at 35 rather than 40 but it doesn't mean that you can never achieve a
16:08pregnancy once you get past the age of 35 right yeah yeah I feel like that adds to the stress
16:14of conceiving and and it's sort of it it it contradicts the whole idea I mean if you're
16:21stressing about conceiving then you're going to have a difficult time conceiving because of the
16:25stress levels because of the increased cortisol levels in your body and you're just you're racing
16:30your biological clock but at the same time you're adding more stress to your body and the stress
16:34thing's an interesting point as well because we hear this a lot and it's and it's like a red rag
16:39to a ball for most people that are trying to conceive yes when you're told to just relax
16:44oh my god if you just relax it will happen no not always it won't always I was told to just
16:50relax so many times right I could have done all the relaxing in the world it wouldn't have made
16:55any difference because it wasn't stress and I think if we're talking about chronic stress
17:00versus day-to-day stress then there's a difference but general stress that we have you know people
17:06still get pregnant they have very stressful jobs they still conceive yeah um but the stress thing
17:11is always a a bit of a touchy subject yeah when you're in that space because yeah you know you
17:19like say you might have blocked tubes it doesn't matter how stressed you are it has nothing to do
17:23I could be meditating every single day and it still won't make a difference exactly you're
17:27absolutely right I agree I think there's nothing that is like a definite you know indicator when
17:33it comes to stress and a lot of people fall back on it because it's just the easy one
17:37like it's an easy boat you know yeah and it's a difficult one as well because we know that chronic
17:42stress has very negative outcomes you know people with chronic stress are more likely to have heart
17:47attacks or have raised cholesterol health complications so we know that it plays a part
17:53and actually if you let's say you were to have a car accident heaven forbid but that the stress of
18:00that can actually stop you from ovulating right because your body goes nope no no no now's not
18:06the right time right it's not a good environment but it would just stop you ovulating maybe that
18:12week or you know in the next week or two weeks when your stress your cortisol comes down right
18:17you'll start ovulating again but you might have like a delayed period that month because you
18:23ovulated later because of a very stressful event exactly and it's just a one-off it's not like it's
18:29going to continue for the rest of the year exactly kind of thing yes of course so you mentioned egg
18:34freezing that is the buzzword right now and I think a lot of people are talking about it as
18:40well because laws have changed recently in the UAE so I want you to help educate us me and the
18:46audience about the laws what have changed like what what's the change that people need to know
18:53about and how can you go about doing it so no great question so in 2021 the UAE changed the
19:01laws on egg freezing prior to 2021 if you're a single female you couldn't freeze your eggs
19:09there were certain cases with married couples with health reasons that it could be done but
19:14if you're a single woman it wasn't possible right now it is possible to freeze your eggs
19:20and it could be because of health reasons you know if you're in the case where you need
19:24chemotherapy chemotherapy has a detrimental impact on fertility so it's recommended that
19:32you have your eggs frozen beforehand but also for social reasons you have that opportunity as well
19:38the thing that you should be aware of if you're considering doing egg freezing in the UAE is that
19:44you can only at this moment in time use it for use them for yourself so you wouldn't be able to
19:51donate them to a family member or use them for surrogacy right and you can only you can't go
19:59down the route of sperm donors or anything like that right so of course you they are for yourself
20:04once you meet a partner and you're ready to do so in the future right have your own children