HYPNOTHERAPY FOR FERTILITY

Hypnotherapy can help increase the likelihood of conception either naturally or in partnership with medical fertility treatments, and has been shown to increase conception by up to 30% and can double the rate of success of IVF treatment.

Fertility issues and stress

Couples experiencing fertility difficulties often feel the effects of increased stress. This can make it more difficult to conceive by:


•Suppressing luteinizing hormone
• Increasing serum cortisol levels
• Inhibiting hypothalamic Gnrh function
• Preventing implantation of a fertilised egg
• Reducing egg quality
• Delaying release of eggs
• Elevating prolactin levels

How can hypnotherapy help?

Hypnotherapy can help reduce the levels of stress and anxiety by increasing relaxation, removing emotional blocks, and by teaching couples to work together to keep stress and anxiety to an absolute minimum before, during and after medical treatment.

What the experts say

In an article by Suzy Greaves entitled Can Hypnosis Help to Make You Pregnant? Dr. Elizabeth Muir, a clinical psychologist working with hypnotherapy for infertility explains that hypnosis affects the hypothalamus—the neural centre at the base of the brain linked to the pituitary gland—and controls the flow of hormones in the body. The hypothalamus is sensitive to stress and acts as a bridge between the emotional and physical, turning emotional messages into physical responses that affect hormone levels. Muir believes that the psychological issues surrounding pregnancy are not sufficiently well addressed for many women with fertility problems.


Studies conducted by Alice Domar, PhD, director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Behavioural Medicine Program for Infertility in Boston support Muir's theory that unresolved issues about having a baby can be removed with counselling and mind/body techniques such as hypnotherapy. In the first study published in 1999 in the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association 42% of 132 infertile women in the program conceived within six months of completing it. In the second study, published in 2000 in the journal Fertility and Sterility, 55% of the previously infertile women who met regularly in a mind/body program conceived, compared with 20% of the control group who used no mind/body techniques and who did not attend meetings.

Dr. Christiane Northrup in her book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom says: "The mind/body approach to fertility is based on the premise that knowledge is power and that a change in perception based on new information is powerful enough to effect subtle changes in your endocrine, immune, and nervous systems. Regardless of what you’ve been told about your fertility, you need to know that your ability to conceive is profoundly influenced by the complex interaction among psychosocial, psychological, and emotional factors, and that you can consciously work with this to enhance your ability to have a baby."

Niravi Payne, a psychotherapist and pioneer of mind-body fertility therapy in America, believes that stress is only one of the factors that can prevent conception. "Our endocrine, immune and nervous systems are all intimately connected and influenced by every thought we think and every emotion we feel," she says. "When something significant happens in our lives, the emotionally charged experience gets stored in our brain. Memories and experiences are also simultaneously stored biochemically and electromagnetically in various organ systems. Negative emotional experiences can throw off the finely tuned hormonal balance necessary for ovulation and sperm production"

Dr Alice Domar's website

Dr Christiane Northrup MD - website

BBC news article on hypnosis and fertility

Article in Daily Mail - 'Hypnotism gave me the baby I longed for'