Sacred Bliss

Complementary and alternative medicine includes therapies from very diverse historical and cultural backgrounds; however they do share a common view of health and wellness and tend to be ‘holistic‘, i.e. they treat the whole person, not just the symptoms of a disease. It is believed that wellness comes from a balance between the body, mind and the environment. Each person is treated as a unique individual who has his or her own particular make-up, is subject to a unique combination of stresses, lives in a unique environment, and has his or her own healing mechanisms to recover from illness. Many forms of complementary and alternative medicine aim to stimulate or enable the body’s ability to heal itself.

Complementary therapies can; boost the immune system, help eliminate toxins, help relieve pain, improve circulation, improve sleep patterns, increase energy levels, induce deep relaxation, reduce stress and tension, restore balance to body systems.

Complementary therapies can be used to target a specific physical, mental, emotional or spiritual problem, or as a preventative measure or purely for relaxation so whether you have a specific health problem or you just want to increase your feeling of well-being or simply relax more, why not try one of these beneficial therapies and see what it can do for you.

Can therapies help you conceive?

When women want to get pregnant, they’ll try (almost) anything in order to achieve their goal. So can Holistic medicine really help you conceive?

The alternative options

Acupuncture

The latest research on acupuncture is encouraging – at least for couples going through in vitro fertilisation (IVF). According to recent studies, women who had acupuncture during fertility treatment were more likely to get pregnant.

In China, acupuncture is widely believed to unblock the flow of chi (energy) in the body, increasing blood flow to fertility organs and helping them to function more efficiently. Its stress-relieving properties are also thought to assist conception.

Reflexology

There’s anecdotal evidence to suggest that reflexology helps women conceive. Reflexes on the feet correspond to the endocrine glands and parts of the body. Treatments can stimulate these, bringing hormones into balance and helping the reproductive organs to work more efficiently.

Homeopathy

It’s a well kept secret that homeopathy improves fertility. Homeopaths treat couples with fertility issues to enhance their chances of conception. Remedies can be prescribed to establish regular menstrual cycles, alleviate menstrual problems and to stimulate ovulation or sperm production. There is anecdotal evidence that homeopathic treatment before IVF and other assisted conception methods raises the chance of success.

Chiropractor

A series of research papers published in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research found that chiropractic had positive results treating infertility regardless of the woman’s age, number of years infertile, previous medical intervention or health history including miscarriages, blocked fallopian tubes, amenorrhea, colitis, or trauma.

Your spine is a central highway of nerves. Just as an electrical cord has to be fully plugged in for an appliance to run, your reproductive system will not function properly if the nerves that lead to them are not functioning or are blocked in some way.

A chiropractor will identify pinched or pressed nerves and fix those spinal distortions, which are called subluxations. The distortions can be caused by many things including childhood falls, illnesses, accidents, poor posture, or even stress.

Once the subluxations are minimized or eliminated, a woman’s menstrual cycle can strengthen, the action that delivers the egg through the fallopian tubes to the uterus can improve, and some cases of endometriosis can begin to reverse.

Holistic websites, chiropractic patients, and chiropractors themselves abound with pregnancy success stories. Some women went to the chiropractor for other reasons only to find themselves pregnant, others have battled infertility for more than 10 years and then suddenly became pregnant within a couple of months or even a couple of visits to the chiropractor. These remarkable results are the same regardless of the technique used by the chiropractor.

Naturally this does not mean that everyone will get pregnant after a visit to the chiropractor only that it has worked for many women. It is certainly an option worth exploring either alone or in conjunction with other infertility treatments particularly if you have ever had an accident or illness.

Don’t Worry, Be happy

Failing to conceive is very stressful… and being stressed can reduce your chances of conceiving. It’s easy to get trapped in this vicious circle, and although the only tangible benefit of some complementary therapies may be that they promote relaxation, the importance of this shouldn’t be ignored.

Nurturing therapies such as holistic massage, aromatherapy and reiki make women feel less anxious about life in general. Plus, whether you’re having fertility treatment or not, the knowledge that you’re doing something  boost your body and soul, can only be uplifting.

As long as you keep an open mind, accept that there are no guarantees that it will work, and it’s not hurting you – or your bank balance – there’s no harm in trying!