Reform NHS Fertility Guidance in Wales
Rejected
87 signatures
Currently, for women to be referred to fertility services in Wales their BMI needs to be between 19 and 30 (under 35 in some areas). While it is understood that obesity can cause issues in pregnancy, the current guidance does not take people's personal circumstances into consideration. Some women will need more help than others due to issues such as PCOS causing insulin resistance and a rise in testosterone. The current system effectively tells women if you're fat you don't deserve motherhood.
More details
BMI has been used exclusively to decide whether people in the NHS gain access to services. However, such rigid guidelines do not allow personal and individual circumstances to be taken into consideration. Rather than helping women navigate these personal circumstances they are inherently fatphobic and disbelieve that women above a certain BMI are entitled to care.
There is research that suggests that BMI is an outdated measurement and it has been questioned why the NHS still relies on this when there are women presenting to them who are overweight, but otherwise healthy. This is something that needs to be looked at, particularly because private fertility clinics focus on age, as opposed to weight. This suggests that there is a discrepancy between health care providers and the right to have help with fertility is becoming a postcode lottery.