fertility
For girls, fertility means being able to get pregnant and have a baby. Unfortunately, some cancer treatments can affect your fertility. One of the main aims of treatment is to try to make sure you’re still fertile afterwards. So your doctors will always think about this when they're planning your treatment.
If only one ovary has been removed, the remaining one will carry on making eggs and your fertility won’t be affected.
But if you’ve had both ovaries removed, or if you’ve had radiotherapy to your ovaries, then you won’t be able to get pregnant or have a baby. This can be very upsetting to deal with on top of having to cope with cancer. Hospitals usually have doctors, nurses or counsellors specially trained to give you help and support. Our section on relationships, sex and fertility has more information.
It’s also possible that having chemotherapy may affect your fertility. Your doctors might talk to you about having some of your eggs removed then frozen and stored before your chemo begins. This is because there’s a possibility that having chemo may affect your fertility, although this isn’t definite. Having your eggs stored means that if you want to try to get pregnant in the future, then you’ll have the option of having fertility treatment if you need it.
periods
If you have chemo it could affect your remaining ovary, and you might notice that your periods become irregular or stop altogether. After the chemo’s finished your periods should get back to normal, but it could take a few months. This is a side effect of your treatment and it doesn’t mean you’re going to be infertile.
Sometimes doctors recommend that you take tablets during chemo that stop your periods, so that you don’t have any blood loss.
early menopause
Having both ovaries removed by an operation will cause the menopause to start straight away.
The menopause is when the ovaries stop producing hormones and a woman’s periods stop. It means you can no longer have children. Usually it happens when women are around 50.
Having radiotherapy to the ovaries will also cause the menopause, but it’ll happen more gradually, over a few months or so.
Sometimes having chemo can also cause the menopause to start earlier than usual. This can be many years after treatment has finished, even after your periods have come back. This is because chemotherapy can reduce the number of eggs you have.
Going into the menopause as a result of your treatment can be very upsetting. Your doctors will explain more about what it means and what can be done to help. You’ll be given hormones to replace the ones your ovaries are no longer producing – this is called hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
An early menopause is a really difficult thing to cope with at a young age and you’ll need lots of support to help you. There's more about this in the relationships, sex and fertility section.
