When you start out asking ‘can reflexology help with fertility?’ it’s important to understand one thing. We don’t always understand! And that’s OK because, did you know that the traditional medical field don’t always understand why medicine works? They just know from the testing procedure that it does.
I know. We were shocked too!
Complementary therapies such as reflexology and massage can offer you benefits if you’re trying to conceive though. As long as you’re coming to a fertility trained therapist — like we are at Essential Feeling, Gidea Park.
Not all reflexologists and massage therapists know how to adapt treatments to your specific conditions, your cycle and your IVF journey if you’re on one.
At Essential Feeling in Gidea Park, Romford, Essex, we often focus on the woman, just because they are the more open to coming for this kind of complementary therapy. It’s you as the female who is going through the assisted reproductive technologies, who has had the miscarriage or is checking every month for a positive pregnancy test.
But the male client is important to the fertility process. They often sit on the outside looking in. So, we help with lifestyle factors that may affect your fertility path.
The role of your fertility reflexology therapist
Our role as your fertility practitioner is serious. We’ve undergone several advanced training courses in fertility reflexology, but we have also enhanced our learning with a continuous cycle of other training materials. You will often find us at home, reading recent articles, have a stash of books we are always adding to on the fertility subject.
And we’ve also trained in nutrition and counselling.
The overall effect is that we have a plethora of resource upon which to draw, before we start with the role our years of experience plays in understanding not only the main issues of infertility but how these fit into your lifestyle.
We’re able to work with you throughout your early pregnancy in your first trimester. And we understand the risk of miscarriage. We’re not about to give you false hope, we’ve been around the block too many times for that. But we will always be honest with you. And clear about our role. And yours.
If you need us to communicate with your other healthcare professionals, then that’s also great.
Factors reducing fertility
There are different quotes out there, but anything from a quarter to a third of couples struggle to conceive. Even without specific fertility issues, in our modern stressful lives it can take two years to conceive.
The reasons affecting your fertility will be different to the person we meet after you. But here are a few of the common factors that may reduce fertility:
*Nutrition: this may not be in line with what is good for improving your fertility even if you have a ‘healthy’ food consumption.
*Alcohol and drug use: read our post on this for full information.
*Environmental toxins: We’ve written about what are toxins and they’re useful to understand.
*Age: There’s no getting away from it. Your age matters. Once you reach 35 the quality of your eggs diminishes and between 40 and 41, your eggs are in danger of being so poor quality that natural fertility is affected. Even IVF may struggle at this point. Men also have issues after the age of 40, so it’s not all on the female!
*Weight: if your BMI is too high or too low, it will negatively affect your hormonal balance.
This is before we start with conditions such as PCOS and endometriosis for women and low sperm count for men. You can see why this is a minefield!
Now, to the marvellous stuff!
Potential benefits of fertility massage and reflexology.
We’ve said elsewhere on this site about the lack of medical research on fertility improving after reflexology. But there are plenty of case studies, and we also have years of working with fertility clients.
Supporting natural fertility
In order for successful conception to occur:
- Balanced hormone levels, so the egg develops
- As a woman you must ovulate so your egg is releases. Some menstrual cycles are anovulatory (we release no egg). Hormone levels affect this.
- It’s important to have sex at the right time in your cycle.
- A male’s sperm need to be healthy and have a good count.
- The lining of your uterus needs to be perfect to induce implantation of the egg in its wall
- After all of this, hormone levels still need to be at the right balance to support your foetal and placental development.
Note: The stress of trouble conceiving can cause hormonal imbalance. This negatively affects your chance of a successful pregnancy.
We have seen repeatedly how effective reflexology is at reducing stress. It’s also great at balancing hormone levels. Combining the two techniques into one reflexology for fertility session are wonderful.
Effects of stress on fertility
We cannot underestimate the effects of stress when talking about fertility. Whether this be natural or supported with a process such as IVF or ICSI. The whole concept of wanting a child and to form a family and it being out of your control is stressful. Deal with the stress and the rest often follows. Even with health issues such as endometriosis, because it’s hormone imbalance that creates this issue and by balancing out stress, we balance out these hormonal messages which trigger infertility disease.
So answering your question, can reflexology help with fertility? we are happy to say yes.
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