In my last couple of posts, Could Your Weight be Contributing to Your Infertility? and Fertility, Obesity, and Eating Disorders, I have been talking about how obesity has been linked to fertility issues. I have also been sharing about my own struggles with the eating disorder of binge and compulsive overeating.

If you have an eating disorder, it has likely become much more intense as you have been facing your infertility challenges. Infertility is very painful, and eating disorders are ways in which we use our bodies to manage our painful emotions. Infertility is the fuel that increasingly flames the fire. You might find that your eating disorder is more out of control than ever.

If you do succeed in becoming pregnant, you will be in a difficult situation because your eating disorder is not just going to go away. Pregnancy comes with all sorts of hormonal changes. Most of the pregnant women I know go at least a little nutty at some point during the pregnancy. If you are abusing your body by stuffing it with food or starving it, then your unborn baby could suffer. You owe it to yourself, as well as your baby-to-be, to work on recovering from your eating disorder now.

I am not telling you to stop trying to get pregnant. Goodness knows, nothing would have stopped me, so I would not ask the impossible. However, I strongly suggest that you talk with a therapist about your eating disorder and learn other, more positive, ways to deal with your painful emotions. That way, if you do succeed in becoming pregnant, your eating disorder will be much less likely to affect your unborn baby.

Eating disorders do not happen in a vacuum. You turned to an eating disorder to help you manage very deep pain from some sort of trauma you experienced in your lifetime. By facing the trauma and healing it, you will alleviate the need to abuse your body with food. Not only will this be best for your baby when you do get pregnant, it will also make you a better and more emotionally stable mother.

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Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt