MY BATTLE with PCOS

Pregnancy Care

- Harnaam Kaur

Harnaam Kaur is an English social media personality, postpartum coach, life coach, and motivational speaker.

She has battled PCOS for years—and endless abuse for her body and facial hair. Her journey to being confident in her own skin and body positivity saw many hurdles and societal bounds.

Harnaam, you are a freelance model, motivational speaker, and a well-known personality known for breaking stereotypical norms, but tell us how has this journey been for you, what was it in your childhood?

My childhood was pretty 'normal.' I attended school fairs, trips, sports days and even took part in plays. I had amazing family trips to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and India, I was a pretty happy child until Puberty hit.I was always bullied for being a chubbier child, I was made to feel ashamed of my weight by school peers, and I didn't notice the facial hair until I was bullied for it- it then became an issue. After years of removing it and trying to conform to what the ‘norm' was, I decided to embrace my facial hair fully at the age of 16. This all happened after being diagnosed with PCOS during my early teens.

You have talked about being PCOD positive and accepting it beautifully, how do you manage it now? Tips you would like to share for our readers

PCOS was a diagnosis that I was afraid of. No one spoke of it so therefore I thought I was dying of a rare disease. It was only after my school nurse sent me pamphlets explaining the condition in which I realized that 1 in 5 people with ovaries has this condition. As far as I am aware, the condition itself is not curable, but the side effects such as diabetes, infertility, irregular periods, weight gain, or loss can be treated.