The Yin And Yang of Making Babies

Her health was in tip-top condition, and so was her husband’s. But despite “trying really hard” for a good one-and-a-half years for a baby, nothing happened. Month after month, Alison (not her real name) and her husband waited with bated breath for a positive pregnancy result, only to be disappointed.

“To me, (having a baby) was something that was very urgent. I was already in my 30s and didn’t want to get pregnant too late to avoid complications,” says Alison, who hopes to have at least two kids. Even more frustrating for the couple was when doctors could not pinpoint the causes of their infertility.

“The doctors termed it unexplained infertility. Check-ups revealed that my tubes were fine, and my husband’s sperm count and quality were healthy. Everything was in place – but there was no baby!” says the 36-year-old executive working in the construction industry.

For Alison, hopefulness soon gave way to despair and frustration. At wits’ end and with her mother’s encouragement, she eventually decided to give traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) a shot, in conjunction with the fertility pills – used to enhance ovulation – that her doctor had given her.

Explaining her unconventional option, she says: “Since Western medicine couldn’t explain why I was unable to conceive, I thought why not try TCM?”

Her gamble paid off. Alison was barely three months into her TCM treatment when she conceived her first child at 35.

Increasingly, TCM practitioners say more people like Alison are turning to TCM treatments for its less invasive approach towards fertility problems. Senior Physician Zhong Xi Ming, who practises at Eu Yan Sang TCM Centre for Reproductive Health at Paragon, declines to give exact figures, but says the number of people she sees for fertility problems has increased “quite substantially” since the centre launched in 2006.

Presently, about 80 per cent of the patients Physician Zhong sees are those with fertility problems. Most of them are above 35 years old. One of her oldest patients is a 46-year-old woman.
At Raffles Chinese Medicine, the number of patients seeking treatment for their fertility problems has increased at least 20 to 30 per cent since 2006.

Read the December 2009 issue of Young Parents to find out if TCM can help improve your chances of conceiving, too.