Enhancing Fertility Naturally or Secrets of Living and Loving with Diabetes

Enhancing Fertility Naturally: Holistic Therapies for a Successful Pregnancy

Author: Nicky Wesson

• A guide to safe and inexpensive natural alternatives to often hazardous and extremely expensive conventional medical treatments for infertility.

• Provides guidelines for using alternative therapies, diet, exercise, and relaxation techniques.

• Explores acupuncture, reflexology, homeopathy, cranial osteopathy, aromatherapy, and herbalism.

• Includes the personal stories of couples who have successfully conceived using these methods.

Enhancing Fertility Naturally outlines ways in which you can improve your fertility through alternative therapies, diet, exercise, and relaxation techniques and avoid some of the hazards associated with conventional treatments. It discusses the most common causes of infertility and explains how to determine which therapy is most appropriate for you. In vitro fertilization, conventional medicine's most prescribed remedy for infertility problems, is expensive, dangerous, and has a success rate of only 14 percent, yet few of the one in six couples that experience infertility are aware of the effectiveness and safety provided by the wide range of alternative treatments.

Thoroughly researched and packed full of invaluable advice and tips, the book explores such therapies as acupuncture, reflexology, homeopathy, cranial osteopathy, aromatherapy, and herbalism. The author includes case histories for each of the therapies discussed, showing how the therapies helped couples overcome both primary and secondary infertility in order to have the baby they longed for.

Library Journal

Wesson (Natural Mothering, 1997) uses anonymous personal narratives to illustrate alternative medical treatment for infertility. The narratives are striking, but the evidence supporting them is uneven at best. To her credit, Wesson admits this; discussing the adverse effects of biomedical treatment, she states: "The lack of research [in alternative treatment] means there may be drawbacks too." More troubling is Wesson's failure to support her tone of authority. Medical citations are scattered throughout the text, but numerous extremely strong statements (e.g., that there is a "higher incidence of spina bifida" in IVF babies) are left completely unreferenced, perhaps with good reason; the source for this particular quote turns out not to be a clinical study but a 1987 letter to the editor of Lancet! Readers are better served by Judith Steinberg Turiel's Beyond Second Opinions: Rethinking Questions About Fertility (LJ 6/15/98), which will assist them in navigating the medical literature for themselves. Not recommended.--Catherine Arnott Smith, Predoctoral Research Fellow, Ctr. for Biomedical Informatics, Univ. of Pittsburgh Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: The Background of infertility
Causes of male infertility
Causes of female infertility
Unexplained infertility
2: The Emotional Effects
3: Medical and Surgical Fertility Treatments
Drugs
In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer (GIFT)
Superovulation with Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)
4: Coping Strategies
5: Improving Your Chances of Natural Conception
Diet
Guidelines for healthy eating
Vitamins and Minerals
Weight
Drugs
Smoking
Chemicals (estrogens and toxins)
Everyday considerations
Ovulation detection
6: Alternative Therapies
Why try alternatives?
Choosing a therapy and finding a therapist
Acupuncture
Aromatherapy
Cranial osteopathy
Healing
Herbal medicine
Chinese herbal medicine
Homeopathy
Reflexology
Relaxation
7: Becoming Pregnant
References
Further Reading
Useful Addresses
Glossary
Index

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Secrets of Living and Loving with Diabetes: Three Experts Answer Questions You've Always Wanted to Ask

Author: Janis Roszler

A diagnosis of diabetes can be difficult but need not be disastrous. In order to maintain healthy emotional and loving bonds with others, it is important that everyone - friends, relatives, and partners alike - take an honest look at diabetes: what it is, the upheaval that it may create, and the closeness that it can inspire. The Secrets of Living and Loving with Diabetes discusses, with humor and openness, the most intimate issues that individuals need to know about this condition. Featuring the most current medical information, clear guidance, easily understood research data, skill-building exercises, soul-searching questionnaires, and personal anecdotes, this guide is a complete resource. The book contains the combined wisdom of three diabetes experts, each offering different ways to not only survive with diabetes, but to thrive.