In Conversation with Terence Pillay 16 February

According to the Infertility Association of South Africa, or IFAASA, for years, infertility has been somewhat of a taboo subject, something that people hid from the world and didn’t talk about. As part of Reproductive Health Month 2015, IFAASA not only encourages couples to seek help to ensure a proper diagnosis and informed decision, but also for the general population to educate themselves about infertility and to remember that pregnancy is a privilege that not every couple is afforded.

 

There are many courses of treatment when it comes to infertility, but today we’re putting the spotlight on alternative treatments / medicine, often seen as the “last resort” when all else has failed!

 

Dr Bruce Thomson is a homeopath who specialises in treating infertility through the use of Chinese Acupuncture and other alternative treatments. Dr. Thomson’s goal is definitely to cure a patient and he does this by looking at treatment in a holistic manner – taking into account the various attributes of an individual that, when combined, account for an person being sick or healthy.    

 

And this is the view of many practitioners like Dr. Thomoson.

 

According to Mike Berkley, the founder of Reproductive Welness and Women’s Health in New York, historically, infertility particularly "functional" infertility–was attributed to psychological problems of one or both partners.

 

“Preliminary works in the 1940s and 1950s considered "psychogenic infertility" as the major cause of failure to conceive in as many as 50% of cases. As recently as the late 1960s, it was commonly believed that reproductive failure was the result of psychological and emotional factors. Psychogenic infertility was supposed to occur because of unconscious anxiety about sexual feelings, ambivalence toward motherhood, unresolved Oedipal conflict, or conflicts of gender identity,” says Berkley.

 

In addition, practitioners of alternative medicine say that stress is nature’s contraceptive. Studies show that stress reduces the hypothalamic-anterior pituitary-ovarian axis function, and should thus be considered in the infertility workup.

Treatments like acupuncture releases endorphins that mitigate one's response to stressful stimuli, thus enhancing the possibility of conception. Biologically, since the hypothalamus regulates both stress responses as well as the sex hormones, it's easy to see how stress could cause infertility in some women.

 

Excessive stress may even lead to complete suppression of the menstrual cycle, and this is often seen in female marathon runners, who develop "runner's amenorrhea." In less severe cases, it could cause anovulation or irregular menstrual cycles.

 

When activated by stress, the pituitary gland also produces increased amounts of prolactin, and elevated levels of prolactin could cause irregular ovulation. The female reproductive tract contains stress-hormone receptors, stress can affect fertility. However, more complex mechanisms may be at play, and researchers still don't completely understand how stress interacts with the reproductive system.

 

Stress can reduce sperm counts as well. Testicular biopsy specimens obtained from prisoners awaiting execution (who were obviously under extreme stress) revealed complete spermatogenetic arrest in all cases. Researchers have also showed significantly lower semen volume and sperm concentration in a group of chronically stressed marmoset monkeys, and these changes were attributed to lower concentrations of LH and testosterone (which were reduced in the stressed group). However, how relevant these research findings are in clinical practice is still to be determined.

The stress factors that acupuncture addresses stems from both psychological and emotional factors as well as physical ones. For example, extremely painful premenstrual or mid-cycle pain can be debilitating. This type of physical stress no doubt produces emotional stress as a result of missed work, interference in activities, and the pain itself, which in turn can compromise the function of the reproductive system. 

 

*Information from www.acufinder.com/Acupuncture+Information/Detail/Alternative+Medicine+Traditional+Chinese+Medicine+in+the+Treatment+of+Infertility

 

Having problems conceiving? You can contact Dr Bruce Thomson for a consultation on:

(031) 2017774 or email him at [email protected]

If you missed the show - here's the podcast:

 

Till next week.

 

Terence pillay

Print, radio and television journalist

mobile:  0824113006 / email: [email protected]