Against the backdrop of Jamaica’s national push to reverse its plummeting birth rate, a grassroots WhatsApp support community has given a collective voice to hundreds of women living with common reproductive health conditions, who say they are eager to have children but locked out of life-changing fertility care due to prohibitive costs.
The community, titled *Life of Women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), Endometriosis and Fibroids*, now counts 247 members, all Jamaican women whose reproductive health diagnoses have left them struggling to conceive, and who cannot cover the high cost of treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) that could help them realize their dream of parenthood.
It was founded in mid-May by 31-year-old Cassandra Ahloc Bernardroiva, who received her diagnosis of PCOS – recently renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) – when she was just 19. Bernardroiva launched the group after noticing a widespread gap in support and public attention for women navigating reproductive barriers that prevent conception. She shared her own personal struggle on social media, and women across the country aged 20 to 45 flooded in to join the safe, judgment-free space, where members trade advice, share resources, and offer mutual encouragement while navigating the challenges of their diagnoses together.
Speaking to the Jamaica Observer, Bernardroiva outlined the widespread frustration shared across the group: members face a wide range of debilitating symptoms, from irregular or absent menstrual cycles to sudden unexplained weight gain and bloating, and often receive dismissive care from medical providers who blame infertility on weight without accounting for the underlying condition. Like many in the group, Bernardroiva has endured multiple failed conception attempts, as well as invasive, hurtful questions from loved ones about why she has not started a family.
With Jamaica’s Health Ministry prioritizing action to reverse the country’s falling birth rate, and Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton recently launching a 12-month process to develop a national National Fertility and Family Support Strategy, the women of the group are calling on policymakers to include targeted support for their needs. They point out that they are exactly the group the government is targeting to boost birth rates: they are ready and willing to have children, they just cannot afford the care that makes conception possible.
“If you’re saying that you need more babies in the country for the economy to thrive or for us to be good in the years to come, then help us,” Bernardroiva argued. “A lot of us probably don’t have the money to get IVF and certain treatments that the doctors would recommend… by helping us, you’re also helping the economy. We are not having kids because we don’t have proper fertility help and we need affordable health care.” So far, the group has tagged Minister Tufton in their public awareness posts, but has yet to receive any response from his office.
Jamaica’s current fertility rate sits at just 1.3 children per woman, far below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to sustain a stable population. The Health Ministry warns that the ongoing decline threatens the country’s long-term economic stability, future workforce, and social safety net, driving population aging, rising dependency ratios, and falling overall productivity.
Jonelle Llewellyn, a 33-year-old group member diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency, joined the community when it had just over 90 members and has watched its rapid growth firsthand. She noted that the group brings together women from every corner of Jamaica who share nearly identical struggles, with dozens of real-time testimonials from women who have spent years trying unsuccessfully to conceive. Llewellyn added that many members lack clear, accessible information about their conditions: doctors often prescribe medications without explaining their purpose, or rely on confusing medical jargon, leaving many women to turn to the group and artificial intelligence to decode their care options.
While existing advocacy campaigns such as PCOSTalkJa and PCOS1in10Ja have done important work to raise public awareness of conditions like PCOS, Llewellyn emphasized that awareness alone is not enough when diagnosis and treatment remain out of reach for most low- and middle-income women. Minister Tufton has said the government’s goal is not just to boost birth statistics, but to build a system where starting a family is affordable, structurally supported, and accessible to all. Llewellyn argues that promise must extend to women whose infertility stems from unaddressed reproductive health conditions, not economic or cultural barriers.
The National Taskforce on Fertility and Responsible Parenting, which is leading the strategy development process, deserves broad public support, Llewellyn noted, but any effective national plan must explicitly recognize common reproductive health conditions as one of the core drivers of Jamaica’s falling fertility rate, beyond the focus on economic incentives. To address the gap, she called for embedded routine screening for these conditions at the primary care level, standardized and accessible pathways to affordable specialist treatment, and expanded data collection that not only tracks how many women are affected, but investigates the systemic failures that have left this population unsupported for decades.
“Life with PCOS represents something policymakers rarely encounter — a ready, willing, and already-organised sample of the very women the strategy must reach,” Llewellyn said. “The means of communication is accessible by design. The evidence inside it is anything but simple.”