From the Material to the Mystical

Flower Remedy/Essence Therapy

"In ancient cultures, the pomegranate was a symbol of fertility," says Cynthia Mervis Watson, M.D., a family practice physician in Santa Monica, California, who specializes in homeopathy and herbal therapy. She recommends the essence of pomegranate to women who are trying to conceive. "It has a balancing effect on the female reproductive system and is also good for emotional issues surrounding sexuality and motherhood," says Dr. Watson.

Homeopathy

Infertility should be treated on an individual basis by a homeopath or fertility specialist, write Andrew Lockie, M.D., and Nicola Geddes, M.D., in The Women's Guide to Homeopathy. But they add that there are several homeopathic remedies you can try while waiting for professional care. They suggest taking a 30cc dose of one of the following remedies every 12 hours for up to seven days.

If you're a woman whose breasts feel tender, with pockets of hard swelling, and whose desire for sex is ebbing, try conium, say Dr. Lockie and Dr. Geddes. They say that lycopodium may help if you have a dry vagina and tenderness in your lower abdomen over the right ovary. If you feel weepy, chilly and irritable, have a lack of sexual desire and have irregular periods accompanied by a sensation that your womb is about to drop out of your vagina, they suggest trying sepia. And if you've had a previous miscarriage before 12 weeks, try sabina, they say.

All of these remedies are available in many health food stores.

In his book Healing Visualizations, New York City psychiatrist Gerald Epstein, M.D., suggests this visualization to help women overcome infertility. Close your eyes, breathe out three times and imagine walking into a beautiful garden. There you find a tree and a stream of flowing water. Bathe in the water, allowing it to enter and clean all ova, or eggs. Then sit under the tree and enjoy the sunshine and blue sky reflecting through the leaves. Look up to your right and make a prayer for what you want. Do this quickly. Then ask your mate to join you in the garden. Lie down under the tree holding hands. Picture a blue light forming a dome over you. Now go out of the garden holding hands, cradling a child between you.

Do this imagery for two to three minutes once a day for seven days, beginning at the middle of your cycle.

Reflexology

On your hands or feet, work the reflex points for the reproductive system, diaphragm, spine and pituitary, parathyroid, thyroid and adrenal glands, says St. Petersburg, Florida, reflexologist Dwight Byers, author of Better Health with Foot Reflexology.

To help you locate these points, there are many good books on the market. Consult the hand and foot reflex charts found in these books.

Vitamin and Mineral Therapy

The antioxidants beta-carotene and vitamins C and E can increase sperm count (the number of sperm) and motility (the sperm's ability to swim to the egg), says Julian Whitaker, M.D., founder and president of the Whitaker Wellness Center in Newport Beach, California. In fact, he says, studies show that large doses of supplemental vitamin C can actually reverse some cases of male infertility. He recommends taking at least 1000 milligrams of vitamin C each day, as well as 400 to 800 international units of vitamin E and 15 milligrams (25,000 international units) of beta-carotene.

And try taking 30 to 60 milligrams a day of zinc, which may also help increase sperm count, says Dr. Whitaker.

Early chroniclers declare that healing was a prerogative peculiar to the sovereigns of England and the first records of its exercise begin with the account given by William of Malmesbury of its practice by Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), from whom the hereditary right is said to have descended to all his successors to the English throne.

William tells the following story:

". . . a young woman who had a husband about the same age as herself, but having no child got into an ill state of health by an overflowing of humours in her neck which broke out in great nobbs. She was commanded in a dream to apply to the King to wash it. So to Court she goes, and the king being at his devotions all alone, doi’d his lingers in water and dabbel’d the woman’s neck and he had no sooner taken away his hand than she found herself better. The loathsome scabb dissolved but the lips of the ulcers remained wide and open. She remained at Court till she was well which was in less than a week’s time; the ulcers being so well closed, the skin so fair, that nothing of her former disease could be discovered, and in less than a year’s time she was brought to bed with twins."