Restoring Fertility…. God’s Way

The Catholic Church has some surprising treasures. No – we’re not thinking of the Vatican museums or its countless historic churches! We’re thinking of the remarkable services that exist to support couples with subfertility. 

Restorative Reproductive Medicine is a rapidly growing field that seeks to treat subfertility by restoring it to healthy functioning, rather than bypassing it with technology. It involves fertility educators, midwives, doctors, counsellors, and other professionals collaborating to restore fertility to subfertile couples. 

When people hear about these services, the reaction is always the same: why haven’t we heard this before? Let’s not delay the good news any longer. 

Don’t wait too late 

We’ve never known the heartache of infertility ourselves, but we’ve walked with others who have. It’s heart-wrenching to witness their pain. 

In our younger years, we were ‘uber fertile’: we conceived with such ease that Byron often joked he only needed to look at Francine during the fertile window. But that’s not the case for most couples, and for many, conception requires considerable effort. 

Human fertility is on a spectrum and changes over the lifetime of a couple, reaching its peak in our early twenties. Around 90% of women under 35 will conceive in a year of regular lovemaking, while only 5% over 40 will.  

Increasingly, couples are delaying family formation until their thirties and forties, well past our fertile prime. While a healthy lifestyle helps to optimise whatever fertility we have, women have a finite number of ova (eggs).  

Unlike men, who continue to produce sperm into old age, by three months in utero, a woman stops making ova. Although she starts with around half a million, by the time she reaches puberty the number has already declined, and by menopause there are none left. 

Subfertility 

But what about when something other than age is the issue? It takes both spouses to conceive, so subfertility can be attributed to a male factor, female factor, or a combination. About 1 in 6 couples will be infertile, and many more will be subfertile (able to conceive but with difficulty). 

Believe it or not, sometimes its simple timing – the couple is just not making love during the fertile window consistently. Whatever their age or baseline fertility, if they time intercourse for the fertile window, they can optimise their chances of conception. 

This is why Fertility Awareness education should be a standard first step for a subfertile couple. Fertility Awareness Methods (FAMs) are not just for couples trying to avoid a pregnancy – they are a valuable source of diagnostic information for all women, and especially those trying to conceive.  

Conditions such as hormonal imbalances, ovarian dysfunction, or infection can be detected and monitored. With the aid of a Naprotechnology medical professional, such conditions can be diagnosed and treated within Catholic moral teaching. 

Treatments may include hormonal supplements or specialist surgical techniques to address blocked or scarred fallopian tubes – a procedure not offered by most fertility clinics.  

A better option 

When a couple fails to conceive as expected, internet searches usually lead them to the doorstep of an infertility clinic specialising in artificial reproductive technology (ART). On offer will be interventions such as artificial insemination, donor gametes, invitro fertilisation (IVF) and gamete intrafallopian tube transfer.  

Apart from the moral problems of ART, none of them directly treat the couple’s subfertility. They do a ‘subfertility bypass,’ often involving painful and invasive techniques. If the couple wishes to conceive subsequent children, they are still subfertile and remain dependent on the clinic. 

On the other hand, restorative reproductive medicine operates on a different agenda to the typical infertility clinic. In seeking to restore fertility whenever possible, it allows conception to occur naturally through lovemaking… again and again. 

It offers a comprehensive and integrated approach that prioritises non-invasive investigations and treatments to avoid unnecessarily medicalising the intimate life of the couple. It seeks to empower the couple, rather than simply outsourcing their reproduction to a laboratory. 

Importantly, with birth rates comparable to IVF, it’s an approach that delivers results (no pun intended!).  

Restorative reproductive medicine is a moral and pastorally sensitive response offering hope, compassion, and practical care… and that’s a treasure to be shared.