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Fertility Article - Alternative Medicine
By Jessica Chalnick - San Diego Fertility Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine
Why Turn to Traditional Chinese Medicine for Fertility Enhancement?
For many women, the main goal in life is to have children
and raise a family. We have been led to believe since adolescence,
that before doing that, we need to get our life in gear, have a career,
a perfect partner, and financial stability. So we start our journey,
and with this, also start a full fledged birth control regime to
prevent pregnancy before we are ready.
For the average woman, this period of time, in which we actively
prevent pregnancy while “creating a successful life” is
around 15 years…this whole time, we are scared to death of
getting pregnant right… “Oh my god, I would die if I
got pregnant right now…I can’t even imagine what I would
do”. We struggle to find the right partner, the right job,
the right age when we feel like we can settle down. Then, although
the feeling of being quite “ready” seems to elude most
of us, the time somehow arrives when we just know we are supposed
to get started. We stop taking this miraculous pill or other birth
control device that we believe has prevented us from becoming mothers
of 10 before our time, and of course we are going to get pregnant!!!!
We think that since we have been preventing it for so long, getting
pregnant should occur almost instantaneously as we start trying.
For many women pregancy will be instantaneous,
but for a whole bunch of us, it will not, and this is a big shock.
For me, the fact that we
can use a preventative measure for years and years, go off of it,
and not instantaneously achieve the result that we have been preventing
is a little humbling. After a few months of trying to become pregnant,
most women become really really frustrated. Because we are ready,
and have decided that this is the right time, it doesn’t mean
that our bodies are ready also. It doesn’t mean that they never
will be, it just means that a little TLC and a jump start may be
in store.
Being a practitioner of Traditional Chinese
medicine, an acupuncturist and herbalist specializing in women’s
health and fertility, I see this situation a lot.
For most women, the inability to not
get pregnant exactly when they want drives them into panic mode…and
understandably so. Now that we have waited till everything is perfect,
we are on a very strict time schedule right?! That is right, but
your body is trying to tell you something, and for the benefit of
yourself, and your future babies, you need to listen. So before you
reach for the Clomid and a syringe filled with your partner’s
sperm, please give your body a chance to get itself back into balance.
This is where acupuncture and Chinese medicine
come into play. With this ancient medicine, your body’s energy
(Qi) can be manipulated so that it returns to a balanced state.
For those of you who aren’t
into this sort of alternative mumbo, acupuncture regulates your hormones,
brings blood to your reproductive organs, and makes sure that your
hypothalamic-pituitary axis is functioning correctly. With acupuncture
and herbal medicine, and insight about our natural cycles, we can
help optimize healthy ovulation, bring back absent periods, lengthen
the luteal phase, and a whole bunch more. If you can get pregnant
naturally, you will have better chances of having a healthy pregnancy
and a healthy baby…your body will thank you for it!
Not to say that Western Medicine doesn’t
have its place in the world of fertility.
For instance many women have fertility problems
that can only be fixed with surgery, In vitro fertilization, or
donor eggs and sperm. With the help of Western medicine and reproductive
endocrinologists, they have been able to fulfill their dreams of
having a family. The goal of this article is to help you give yourself
a fighting chance first. With acupuncture, herbal therapy, dietary
guidelines (Eastern and Western), and lifestyle advice, pregnancy
can be achieved, and your family will be a lot healthier along
the
way
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