As more and more Irish women delay motherhood and then want to have their babies within a specific time-frame, the shock of not being able to conceive within a few months can turn into a longer and more painful trauma of unexplained infertility for up to 12 per cent of women. Other couples can find their dream pregnancy results in a miscarriage, a still birth or the birth of a premature baby who struggles through the first months of his/her little life.
Now, Healthy Parents, Better Babies, a new book by Australian authors Francesca Naish and Janette Roberts, claims an over 80 per cent success rate (healthy pregnancies and content and alert babies) for couples who participate in their four-month preconception health plan.
Francesca Naish is a naturopath and herbalist who founded the Natural Fertility Management Clinic in Sydney, Australia. She believes that the poor quality of our food and our polluted environment are major causes of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirths and a whole host of childhood illnesses including asthma, excema and some learning difficulties.
Her co-author, Janette Roberts, is a pharmacist, nutritionist and the Australian representative of Foresight, the international association which promotes preconceptual healthcare and runs similar programmes to those advocated in this book. Foresight claims an 81 per cent success rate in couples with past infertility.
"We would like to see the preconception period as the first trimester of four in terms of pregnancy," says Janette Roberts, who is also the founder of one of Australia's first Wellness Centres.
Essentially, what Naish and Roberts suggest is that couples embark on a preconceptual healthcare programme which includes radical changes to their diet (all the usual advice, including more wholegrains, vegetables and fruit, virtually no salt and suger and moderate amounts of fish, chicken, eggs, dairy food and red meat), the taking of regular food supplements (because they believe our soil is so lacking in nutrients that it cannot allow our food to contain enough minerals and vitamins), a detoxification from harmful environmental chemicals and gases and a check through any reproductive health problems that may exist. Only then should the couple try to conceive a baby, according to Naish and Roberts.
And at that, only at the most fertile time of the female's monthly cycle - which they term "conscious conception". "We'll tackle almost any kind of infertility problem although there are some intractable problems such as blocked (fallopian) tubes," says Naish. Healthy Parents, Better Babies also contains natural therapy remedies for irregular menstrual cycles and hormonal imbalances, endometriosis and low sperm count.
While they admit it can be difficult to get both partners equally committed to the preconceptual programme, they say that once participants get started, it becomes easier. Naish has also trained counsellors in natural fertility management throughout Australia, in Malaysia and New Zealand and plans to run courses in the UK and the US in the near future. The Natural Fertility Management Clinic also offers a worldwide service through telephone and email consultation with local diagnostic testing.
Certainly, from reading their book, it seems like very hard work to get your body into such a pure state pre-conception. And while it is not surprising that participants are advised to take regular exercise and stay off alcohol, caffeine and cigarettes throughout the four-month programme, it is much more difficult to have all the mercury-containing dental amalgams removed from your teeth (they seriously advise you not to have such filling put in during pregnancy) and to avoid working at a computer.
Sitting in front of a VDU for eight hours a day may, according to Naish and Roberts, be a significant factor in compromised reproductive outcomes. Instead, they suggest the use of laptops which are believed to emit less radiation.
Clients at the Natural Fertility Management Clinic in Sydney include couples without fertility problems who want to follow a programme which will help prevent problems in pregnancy and early childhood illnesses, as well as those with fertility problems. "Twenty per cent of those who come to us with fertility problems have already tried IVF and failed, 20 per cent come at the point when they are about to try IVF and the rest choose to follow a natural preconceptual programme," says Naish.
"IVF is just a transportation system and there is a lot more to fertility than that," says Naish. She cites the average success rate for IVF as about 15 per cent. (The Rotunda Hospital's Infertility Clinic cites a 20 per cent success rate). "Our approach is much more hands-on than IVF, and couples begin by attending two, two-hour sessions dealing with lifestyle issues. Quite unlike IVF, after which many couples can feel very disempowered and sick, they feel motivated and empowered after the preconceptual programme," says Naish. That said, the Natural Fertility Management Clinic works in conjunction with one IVF clinic in Sydney.
Prof Robbie Harrison, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Royal College of Surgeons, is sceptical that a preconceptual programme, such as that of Naish and Roberts, is the sole reason for couples who were previously infertile to become fertile.
"I don't want to pour cold water on the idea and advice on good nutrition, avoiding cigarettes, alcohol and drugs should be given to anyone who wants to conceive. But, there is a very high placebo effect in infertility," he says. For instance, 50 per cent of those couples for whom no problem is found at the infertility clinic in the Rotunda Hospital, conceive within six months of being discharged. Also, 30 per cent of couples who simply make contact with such an infertility clinic conceive without being investigated at all. Sixteen per cent conceive while on the waiting list for IVF and 21 per cent of those who have an IVF baby, go on to conceive naturally themselves within two years.
"I think it is wrong to make exaggerated claims as to the efficacy of specific lifestyles unless all parameters really have been shown to be detrimental to health. A certain changed lifestyle may be very good but other changes in lifestyle may work too," continues Prof Harrison.
The recent trend of women wanting to have babies within specific time-frames can add a psychological dimension to infertility, according to Naish and Roberts. They believe the switch from a "contraceptive mentality" to a conception mentality is a big hurdle for many to cross.
"Many women have spent several years being frightened of conceiving so they have an inbuilt fear of becoming pregnant," says Naish. She also recommends women be off oral contraceptives for six months before embarking on the preconceptual healthcare programme. During this time, nutritional deficiencies in zinc and folic acid should be addressed. The World Health Organisation also recommends that women take supplements of folic acid and vitamin B before conception.
Healthy Parents, Better Babies by Francesca Naish and Janette Roberts is published today by Newleaf, £12.99.
The Natural Fertility Management Centre website is www.fertility.com.au. Foresight website is www.surreyweb.org.uk/ foresight/home.html. Nurse/mid-wife and nutritional counsellor Patricia Quinn is the secretary of the Irish branch of Foresight. Tel: 01-4513619 between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. (Mon-Wed).
sthompson@irish-times.ie