Episode 19: Finding Fat-Friendly Fertility Clinics – How to Research, Interview, and Choose Your IVF Provider
Episode Summary
In this episode of Fat and Fertile, Nicola Salmon dives into the practical—and emotional—realities of finding a fertility clinic that supports fat folks with compassion and without weight stigma. Whether you’re just beginning to explore fertility treatment or feeling frustrated by constant barriers, this episode is packed with actionable tips, thoughtful guidance, and much-needed reassurance.
Nicola shares the exciting news of her newly updated Fat-Friendly Fertility Clinic Guide, a powerful resource featuring nearly 150 community-sourced recommendations from fat people who’ve accessed IVF and other fertility treatments. She explains how to use the guide, what to look out for, and why it’s so important to have information upfront—especially when some clinics still impose harmful BMI restrictions or hidden costs.
She also walks you through her top tips for researching, interviewing, and choosing a fertility clinic that will treat you with the respect and care you deserve. From asking the right pre-consultation questions to understanding your legal and medical rights around weighing, diet talk, and treatment access, Nicola empowers you to advocate for yourself at every stage.
If you’ve ever felt disheartened by fertility clinics, this episode is a must-listen. Nicola reminds us that while fat-positive clinics might feel like unicorns, they do exist—and finding the right one can make all the difference in your journey.
Links and Resources
Nicola’s Fat Friendly IVF Clinic Database
Nicola’s book: Fat and Fertile
Nicola's Instagram: @fatpositivefertility
Join the Fat and Fertile community on Ko-Fi for more support
Get Involved
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👉 Explore all these resources here and take your first step toward parenthood without stigma or shame. I’m cheering you on every step of the way!
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Hey my lovely. Welcome to Fat and Fertile, the podcast. I'm Nicola salmon. Pronouns. She and her. I'm an award winning fertility advocate and fat positive fertility specialist, and I am so passionate about supporting fat folks who feel excluded or dismissed by traditional fertility spaces. On this podcast, we'll tackle weight bias within the fertility industry. We're going to explore how to navigate your fertility journey without diets, shame, or stigma, and empower you to trust your body and take control of your reproductive health. If you're looking for more support, be sure to download my free Fat Person's Guide to Getting Pregnant. Or join my Coffee community. It's a space for fat folks to connect, share, and find compassionate support. You'll find all the links in the show notes. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm in your corner, and we've got this together. Hi my loves. Welcome to another episode of Fat and Fertile. It is warm enough now that I'm in my what I call my garden office, which is a summer house, which is lovely, but it doesn't have any form of insulation, so hence I can only come in if it's over ten degrees Celsius outside. Is it Celsius? Is it centigrade? Oh my goodness. Anyway, you might be able to hear some background noise, which hopefully is soothing because it's only the birds. You might hear the occasional me from a little lamb as it wanders past the road, but hopefully the noises aren't too disruptive and who knows whether we'll be able to hear them or not, because I'm using my real life microphone again. But hi, it's really spring in the northern hemisphere and I'm so grateful for the spring weather. It has been gorgeous and I have been spending more time in my garden, which I love. I am not a gardener. I kill every plant that I own, but I am so happy being outside and it makes such a difference to my mood. I know British. All we can talk about is the weather. But, um. Yeah, I hope where you are that you are feeling a little bit more human if you are in the Northern hemisphere coming out of winter, and it is helping somewhat with your mood no matter where you are and what you're doing. So in honor of the new, updated version of my clinic guide, um, I wanted to talk about finding a clinic today. So for those of you who don't know, on my website I have a guide. It is a list of nearly 150 recommendations from other fat people who have been trying to find a clinic, accessing IVF, accessing other fertility treatments, and it is the names of the clinics, their locations, if people have left, um, comments about them. I've tried to include all that information, information that they've shared about their bodies so that you can get a sense of like how much relative privilege they have. And so many people have shared and posted that this clinic list is the reason that they were able to get pregnant, because they were finally able to find a clinic that would support them in their body. The huge caveat with this is obviously not all of these clinics are that positive. Far from it. I really wish they were. But sometimes it's a case of accessing any clinic rather than accessing no clinic. It's about really figuring out what your options are so that you have a choice, rather than struggling and not finding any clinic that will support you at all. So it's far from perfect, but it is just that a huge overhaul. It's probably been on my website like 3 or 4 years at this point, but I have just really overhauled how you can access the information. So hopefully it's much more easier to navigate, much easier to find the information that you need. I'm still rolling out a couple of tweaks and figuring out how to make it a bit more user friendly on the mobile, but if you're looking at it from a laptop or from a PC, um. It is so much easier to navigate and find the information. So in honor of that and to celebrate that hour. Honestly, it's hours of work at this point. It's because it's taken us so long to update the information, check all the links, work, copy it over to the spreadsheet. But it's so worth it if just one person finds a clinic that will support them, rather than having to spend like their hours looking and being turned away from clinics. So it is such a valuable resource and one I am constantly updating. So yeah, in honor of that, today I want to talk about how you can find a clinic that will support you. And the first thing that I want to say is, hopefully because of the existence of this guide, you can see that there are clinics out there that if you are worried that you need to find, um, and access fertility treatment, that you know that there is. Options. There are options out there. There is a choice. You can choose to find a clinic that will support you now, given it's not always an easy choice. Obviously accessing IVF fertility treatments comes with a lot of privilege. Um, it often is financially burdensome. Depending on where you live. That could be tricky to find one that doesn't add on, like the amount of stress that you have to go under to access it. I know for folks in the UK here, they we have a great clinic in Ireland, which is um, you have to get a plane if you're in England and you want to go over to Ireland or a boat, and obviously when you're in a bigger body, getting on a plane isn't always that simple. It can be really difficult. It can add whole extra layers of stress to the process. So location can make it tricky. If you're in a country where you have healthcare insurance, that can make things tricky. So there are lots of other barriers that can be there to stop you from accessing the healthcare that you deserve. But I want you to know that there are choices. I want you to know that there are options if IVF is your next step, or are you? Why? Or other forms of fertility treatment are your next step to growing your family? So beyond that, beyond like maybe you've looked at the guide, maybe you haven't found one that works for you. Maybe you want to stay closer to home. Maybe you've only got access to particular, um, insurance providers. If you've exhausted that options, what else can you do? So here are some of my other top tips to finding a clinic. So they're the best, best, best, best way of finding a clinic that is more likely to give you the care that you deserve is personal recommendations. And there's a number of ways that you could go about this. If you're in a city or an area with a large population, you could look for things like fat positive groups or fat groups, or places where other folks in bigger bodies hang out together. And then if you find those, you're much more likely to find, um, other folks who may have navigated this, who may be able to share some ideas of where they've been. These can be in-person groups, but there are also loads of groups online, whether that's through a Facebook group, um, through like, other online spaces. There are definitely lots of local groups that you can look for that have these, um, collections of people that may have experiences that they would be willing to share with you. The other choice is free groups. So then, um, like more national groups or more worldwide groups rather than in your local area. So you're less likely to find someone local, but you never know. Like there could be other folks local to you on these big groups, but they can often be another place where you could get ideas and people might be able to share things. So these are normally specific to fertility. So there's a great free group on Facebook called Fat Fertility. There is also a really good Reddit um, thread, which I think is just called infertility. Um, and it's a big one, but they have some really good, um, if you're going to go on check the rules first, but there's definitely one which I think is called infertility that has really good rules around weight talk and not allowing weight stigma, which is brilliant. So those are the two places that I would go if there wasn't a local fat group to me, or if I'd exhausted that option of like finding people locally, I'd be going to these big fertility specific groups to get an idea. Um, so yeah, it is not always easy to find a clinic, and it sometimes is a case that you need to decide what your priorities are when it comes to the care that you want. And there's lots of ways that you can work that out. But maybe you decide that cost is the most important factor. Obviously, you know, we all don't have limitless amounts of money as much as we love that. Um, maybe you need to make sure that's in your budget and that's the first and foremost thing. Then maybe it will be location. Like, obviously having a clinic closer by is absolutely what you deserve. You deserve to have care that is affordable, local and inclusive. But it's deciding really what of those is the most important thing and how you prioritize them. Because that is often where we fall down and we don't. We're not able to find all of those three in that golden trifecta. So yeah, I would love to know how that lands, how you're feeling about that, how you're doing on finding a clinic. If that's the point in your kind of progress that you are in at the moment, and then once you've got a shortlist of clinics. Maybe then it's time to start asking questions. So I would definitely, before booking any kind of consultation, be asking them 2 or 3 questions minimum about their policies around BMI and seeing what they come back with, because the information that they send back about those questions should give you better insight into how they treat fat people, how your experience is going to pan out with them, and how they're going to treat you through that process. So a few ideas for questions that you can email ahead of a consultation would be things like, do you have a people of size policy? Some clinics will, some clinics won't. You can ask them, um, if they routinely ask their clients if they have eating disorders, do they have some kind of eating disorder, um, form to ensure that they are appropriately meeting people who come through the doors needs? Because eating disorder rates at fertility clinics is a lot higher than the average population. So a good clinic will be, um, checking patients as they come in to ensure that they can give them the best care through their treatment. So that's one question you can ask. Another question that you could ask would be around. Do they expect patients to be weighed when and how often? So getting a sense of like how much value they put into that data and if it's okay if you refuse, if that's something that you would choose to do, you could. So when it comes to weighing, some clinics will be very like, we want to weigh you all the time. We want to wear you at every appointment. But actually the only time medically that they need that information is if you're going through a process where you need anaesthetic or sort of egg retrieval in the case of IVF, and then they need that information so that they can give you the appropriate dose of anesthesia. That is the only time that your weight is medically relevant any other time through the process. It's not useful information. So that's worthwhile knowing. Other questions you could ask around if they have any BMI barriers specifically to access particular treatments. Some clinics will let you do some things and not others. Something some clinics will only let you do tests and not treatments. So it's really worthwhile getting a full picture of what the clinic will offer and provide. And if there are BMI limits around it, and also asking if there are any caveats, and maybe they'll offer IVF up to BMI 40 or BMI 50, but. You have to go into a special operating theatre. You have to have it away from the clinic. You need different kit. You need a second anaesthetist. There's lots of ways that sometimes they will add on the cost. So it's really important to be aware of those costs upfront so that you know and can consent to what the process and the procedure that you'll need is. Um, and a lot of these things are very evidence based. A lot of them are quite fear based when it comes to the clinic and how they are managing folks in bigger bodies. But the most important thing for me, for you, is that you have all the information that you need to make a fully informed decision, and that includes things like BMI barriers. That includes things like additional costs. That includes things like knowing how and when you're going to be expected to be weighed, and how those treatments are going to go. And, you know, all of this stuff, the more information you have ahead of time, the the more useful that is to help you make a decision about whether this is the right clinic for you. Another question that you could ask is if they talk about diets. So some clinics will be like quite open to just not discussing that kind of thing. Some clinics will be really diet talk heavy and will want to talk about food even if they're not qualified to, or will recommend things like medications to support your losing weight. So you can ask them if they talk about that. You can ask them if they would honor your boundary around not discussing that, because that is an option. And really just see how those conversations go and how those questions are answered before you book a consultation. So consultations vary place to place. A lot of clinics do charge for consultations. So you want to make sure that if you're booking a consultation you've got a bit more information about the clinic, about their, um, policies, about their beliefs around weight, so that you go in knowing what to expect, especially if you're having to pay for it. There are some clinics, especially in Europe, in a lot of the European countries, that don't, um, ask you to pay for consultations. So if that's the case, then I'd be a bit more open to, like just going in with an open mind and seeing what they say. But when you are paying for that process, I think it is so worth doing a bit more research and doing a bit more digging into what they do and how they do it, before you give them any of your hard earned money. So I hope that is helpful. I hope that the guide is a really great place to start when it comes to looking for a clinic. The most important thing is that you know that you have options, that there are clinics out there. Sometimes you might need to travel for them. Sometimes you might need to, um, you know, hunt down these little magic pixies that you know, that live in fairy tales, but they do exist. They are there, I promise. They are not all imaginary, and I hope the guide really helps with that. If you are in the process of finding a clinic, if you are getting ready to start going through IVF treatment, then I have something that is going to make your life so much easier. I have this really great course called IVF for Fat Folks. It is literally everything I know about navigating IVF or IUI or other fertility treatments in a bigger body distilled into this magnificent course. So we go through every single step of the procedure. We go through all of the research that supports how effective IVF and fertility treatments are for fat folks, how safe they are, what you can do to navigate those concerns, how you can advocate for yourself and for your health through those procedures, and really going through day to day. Like we break it down into every single step of that IVF process. And what tips and tricks are going to be helpful for you, specifically as a fat person and how to manage them? It also comes with access to my community, the fat positive fertility community, so that you can go on there and talk with other fat people who are navigating this. We're a small but mighty community at the moment. So we would love to have you on board to, um, support you in navigating this process together with other people who are going through it, who get it, who have been through it. Because having that community is so vital. And if you buy it in April 2025, I have decided to, um, gift everybody who joins a 30 minute chat with me so you can ask me any specific questions you have. We'll hop on a call together. We'll talk through what's going on for you, and I will give you my best. All the information that I can possibly in 30 minutes, we'll squeeze so much in. So, yeah, I would love for you to join us on that course. If that sounds like it's something that is helpful. I will pop it in the show notes, and I cannot wait to chat with you if you are about to go through this journey, or if you want some extra help along the way. Take care. Thank you so much for joining me today on Fat and Fertile. I hope you found encouragement and support as you navigate getting pregnant in a bigger body. If you're looking for more resources, don't forget to grab your free Fat Person's Guide to Getting Pregnant. And if you'd like to support my work or connect with a loving, kind, fat, positive community, join me over on Kofi as a member, you'll get the chance to ask me anything and I answer all of your questions personally. There's exclusive bonus podcast episodes every month answering some questions. A supportive place to connect with other members who are also navigating the same issues that you are, and access to some of my most loved courses and tools. So whether you're trying to get pregnant or just want to support fat positive fertility advocacy, then we'd love to have you over there. The links to everything are in the show notes. Until next time, take care and remember you are absolutely worthy of all of the support and love that you need in order to grow your family.