In an emotional interview, a new mother from Irvinestown has spoken of how losing over four stone in weight helped her conceive and give birth to a healthy baby boy.

Prior to losing the weight, Claire Carleton had been told by her doctor that due to her high BMI she would find it difficult to conceive.

“I was in a relationship and we were planning to have a baby at some point but I knew that because I was heavily overweight that it would be difficult and obviously I had other underlying health issues so I decided, with the support of my sister who was at Slimming World at the time, to join the Irvinestown group which is local to me.

“ I suppose my journey started then,” Claire explained.

She added: “Because I had a focus, I wanted to lose weight for a purpose, it seemed to come off me quite easily.”

Claire commented that prior to losing the weight she felt “fat, unfit, unhealthy, miserable and just uncomfortable”.

“My BMI was extremely high and because I was overweight, for the benefit of myself and my baby it would be better if I lost weight,” said Claire, who weighed 14 stone 13 pounds before she started losing weight.

A couple of weeks after losing a total of four stone seven pounds, Claire found out that she was pregnant.

“Once we started trying, after I lost all that weight, we conceived within a few weeks and I had relatively good pregnancy,” she shared.

Five months ago Claire gave birth to her son Eoin.

When asked how it felt to have lost weight which resulted in her giving birth to a healthy baby boy, getting quite emotional Claire said: “It felt great, it felt amazing.”