Gentle exercise such as walking, yoga, or swimming can help stimulate your digestive system and reduce bloating. Wear comfortable clothing and avoid tight or restrictive clothing. Consult IVF clinic if your bloating is severe or accompanied by other symptoms such as abdominal pain or nausea.
Eating fresh fruits and green vegetables can do the work! Focus on eating more low-calorie and high in fiber foods that can lead to post-IVF weight loss. Avoid processed meats and fried or breaded meat from your diet. Instead, focus on plant-based proteins such as beans, lentils, soy, nuts, and seeds.
The full and bloated feeling usually lasts a few days to a week after retrieval and then everything will go back to normal. There can be some temporary weight gain with stimulation.
Bloating is only temporary and is the result of water retention and other factors. Weight gain, in contrast, lasts longer and might be harder to undo. You can reduce these effects by exercising, eating healthy, and drinking lots of water throughout your IVF cycle.
Most women will quickly lose the fluid they accumulated and will go back to their normal body weight. Some women will also put on weight by storing more fat during IVF but some also maintain their weight, and some will lose a little.
Does IVF increase weight? Slight weight gain during IVF treatment (5–10 pounds) is considered absolutely normal. Contrary to popular belief, an increase in body weight is most often caused by hormonal changes and water retention during ovarian stimulation (not IVF itself).
As you get closer to your retrieval date, it's normal for the bloating to increase as your ovaries have stretched out. Bloating can be caused by the stimulation medications and the egg retrieval procedure itself. As your ovaries return to their normal size post egg retrieval, the bloating should begin to subside.
Since the IVF process uses fertility drugs to alter a woman's hormones and help control her cycle, there are bound to be side effects from treatment. These side effects are normal and resolve on their own over the course of a few days as hormone levels return to normal.
It may take a couple weeks for your ovaries to return to normal size. If bloating and discomfort increases over the 7-10 days after your retrieval, let your nurse coordinator know. You are able to resume normal activity the day after your procedure as tolerated.
Treatment options may include: Diuretics — medicines that help you get rid of extra fluid. Dialysis — a treatment that filters your blood through a machine. Paracentesis — a procedure that uses a small tube to drain fluid from your abdomen.
National guidelines on obesity and infertility are very clear; your weight can affect your fertility. Guidelines indicate that your chances of getting pregnant with IVF are better if your BMI is between 19 and 30. A BMI over 30 has a significant negative effect on IVF pregnancy success rates.
According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), a higher body-fat percentage can also affect the success of fertility treatments, such as IVF. On the flip side, when you have a low BMI, or a low body-fat percentage, your body doesn't have enough energy to run properly.
During an IVF cycle, women are given medications to stimulate the ovaries to produce multiple eggs. These medications cause hormonal changes that can lead to fluid retention and weight gain.
Recent studies have discovered that weight does not significantly affect the success of IVF treatment. According to the research, there is no adequate evidence to prescribe preconception weight loss to obese women with unexplained infertility.
After going through all this, when the IVF cycle fails, the women's emotional response is more or less similar to a pregnancy loss and she goes through the same grief stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
IVF can be mentally, physically and emotionally painful. In many cases, one of the biggest complaints is bloating and pain some women face during the ovarian stimulation process, where hormones are injected to produce multiple eggs for retrieval.
In vitro fertilization
Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is an exaggerated response to excess hormones. It usually occurs in women taking injectable hormone medications to stimulate the development of eggs in the ovaries. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) causes the ovaries to swell and become painful.
Most common side effects include redness of the skin over the injection site, headache and nausea. Adverse reactions include allergic reaction. Long term effects include bone loss in long-term users, not significant for the short courses used for IVF.
Bloating is a common post egg retrieval symptom, and it is a consequence of your ovaries being enlarged. Distention and a feeling of fullness after a less than normal sized meal are also commonly linked to bloating. If it is a case of mild OHSS, these symptoms should resolve on their own in around 1-2 weeks time.
Weight gain is also normal for some women and is usually caused by water retention or extra fluid in the ovaries. However, the symptoms of bloating and weight gain are usually temporary and should disappear within about a week.
Also, it is better to avoid having the following foods before and after egg retrieval surgery: Inflammatory foods include sugar, refined carbohydrates, fried foods, processed foods, and red meat.
Does Gonal-f (follitropin alfa) cause weight gain? While weight gain is not a typical side effect of Gonal-f (follitropin alfa), stomach bloating can be. For some people, this stomach bloating can make pants or other clothes feel tighter, as if you've gained weight.
The peak effect of your medications happens approximately 7-10 days after the procedure. After that time, the ovaries will slowly reduce in size and return to normal following your next menstrual cycle. The menstrual cycle will resume approximately 14 days after the egg retrieval.
During IVF , mature eggs are collected (retrieved) from ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab. Then the fertilized egg (embryo) or eggs (embryos) are transferred to a uterus. One full cycle of IVF takes about three weeks. Sometimes these steps are split into different parts and the process can take longer.