- The fashion guru had 16 rounds of IVF before having her daughter Lyla in 2003
- The What Not To Wear star said she felt like her ‘mojo had gone’ by her forties
What Not To Wear star Trinny Woodall has told how she believes going through 16 rounds of IVF triggered her early menopause.
The fashion guru, 59, gave birth to daughter Lyla in 2003 through fertility treatment after struggling to conceive.
Soon after, and still in her early forties, Trinny felt like her ‘mojo had gone’.
Trinny, who shot to fame in the early 2000s alongside fellow style icon and TV co-host Susannah Constantine, told The Shift podcast she was offered antidepressants after seeing ‘lots and lots’ of medics.
However, she claims she was later told by Dr Erika Schwartz, author of The Hormone Solution, that she had actually undergone an early menopause caused by IVF, with each round having supposedly shaven a year off her cycle.
But leading experts insist there is ‘no evidence’ fertility treatment can trigger early menopause.
Roughly one in 20 women will experience an early menopause, when periods stop before the age of 45. For the majority, the cause is unknown.
Trinny, founder of makeup and skincare brand Trinny London, told the podcast: ‘I read this book called The Hormone Solution which she [Dr Schwartz] wrote.
‘And I went to see her in New York and she just laid it out for me.
‘She said “you did 16 rounds of IVF, that’s about 16 years of your cycle because each time you do a round of IVF you produce 10-12 eggs and that’s what you’re producing in a year”.
‘Never been told that. I wouldn’t have given a s*** because I had Lyla.
‘But it was interesting that my mum went in at 57 and there I was at 43 and so I’ve been very focused on it.’
Trinny said she only had a ‘few symptoms’ of early menopause but that she didn’t recognise them straight away.
As well as periods becoming infrequent or stopping altogether, hot flushes, night sweats and vaginal dryness are tell-tale signs, along with difficulty sleeping, low mood and reduced sex drive.
It can be diagnosed by a GP based on symptoms, family history and a blood test to check hormone levels.
Treatments include the combined contraceptive pill or hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to replenish missing hormones.
Trinny said menopause can be ‘incredibly debilitating’ and she will ‘do everything’ to ease her symptoms.
‘I do all general hormone treatment but I stimulate my brain, I do meditation, I do strength training four times a week. I want to look after my body tremendously, so it can look after me,’ she added.
Some women can experience hot flushes, joint pain and vaginal dryness long after their periods have ended.
Kourtney Kardashian similarly claimed in an episode of Hulu’s The Kardashians that medication she was taking for IVF put her into early menopause.
However, experts have long dismissed the idea that IVF or other fertility treatments can trigger an early menopause.
Those touting this theory claim that drugs used during the process force the ovaries to release around a dozen eggs at a time, instead of the one usually released during ovulation. As a result, the body may run out of eggs early, they claim.
But medics warn that this theory is completely wrong.
Instead, women produce 10 to 20 egg follicles each month. Over the course of a menstrual cycle, one or two follicles will fully mature and be released by the body, while the rest of the immature eggs dying off.
Fertility drugs — called follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) — work to save these eggs. They stimulate the follicles that the body has already made, so more can fully mature, be collected and fertilised. With more fertilised eggs, a clinic has a greater choice of which embryos to use in treatment.
This process does not deplete a woman’s egg count. Women are born with around 2million eggs and still have a few thousand left when they enter the menopause.
Rather than IVF or fertility treatment, early menopause can be triggered by premature ovarian failure — when the ovaries stop making normal levels of certain hormones. Cancer treatments and surgery to remove the ovaries are also known causes.
Professor Tim Child, chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s scientific and clinical advances advisory committee, said: ‘There’s no evidence that IVF brings forward the menopause.
‘This is because women are born with around 2million eggs and even at the menopause there are still 1,000-2,000 eggs remaining.
‘The reduction in egg number during a woman’s life is mainly due to eggs degenerating rather than them being ovulated.’
Dr Schwartz told MailOnline: ‘In my career of more than 30 years of taking care of women with hormonal imbalances I have found that numerous IVF treatments are often reported by patients presenting with early onset menopause.
‘We are talking of thousands of women seen in our clinical practice.
‘It is clearly a recurrent theme that should not be overlooked and should be more properly studied.’
