Recommended reading

I have just finished reading Valerie Hartouni’s book called “Cultural Conceptions” and it is fascinating!  Hartouni starts by reminding us that what we observe and how we make sense of it depends on our stored memory of events, that after building a “data bank” of image or concepts, we begin to recognise familiar narratives, shapes and we give the object we are looking at meaning determined by our memory of the past.  We predict what we might be observing by this past data bank of observation and so we are limited by our experience.  Judgments in landmark cases to do with human reproduction are at the cutting edge of this thinking – how can we make laws about processes we have no experience of? What informs our moral or ethical data bank as to how to predict the future outcomes of techniques such as IVF using mitachondrial DNA from one woman, the egg from another and the sperm from a third “parent”.  Who are the parents in this scenario?  How does the law accommodate the practice of surrogacy?  - the main thrust of the book. 

 Do yourself a huge favour and read this gem, it will make you think about more than just having babies – it will make you think about what it is to be a parent.

Jonas Method of Conception

On several other astrological sites there is a method that is often touted as THE ONE that can time conception.  Dr Jonas did a study and that alleges that a woman is fertile each and every month when the phase angle of the moon and the sun are the same as in a woman’s natal chart.  For instance, he says that if you were born on a new moon then every new moon you are fertile, every month, even if the new moon occurs during your menstrual cycle. 

I have a problem with this.  For the simple reason – no one has ever been able to pinpoint the moment of conception – not even in high tech fertility treatments such as IVF, Gift and Zift.  A fertilised embryo can be fertilised in a dish and then returned to the uterus, but conception happens when the embryo is accepted by the uterus and implants in the inner lining of it.  To date, no doctor has “seen” this moment.  Conception can happen 5-6 days after fertilisation.  The angle or phase of the moon can change within one day, and the moon moves in the heavens approximately 2 degrees a day, so that 5 days represents a nearly a quarter change in the angle of the moon to the sun. 

Robert Winston points out in his book ,Infertility – A Sympathetic Approach,  that a healthy couple in their early twenties has a 15% percent chance of falling pregnant each month.  Dr Jonas suggests you have a chance every month.  As a practitioner of fertility astrology it has not been my experience that the Jonas method works at all satisfactorily, and to my mind there has to be more to fertility astrology than the phase of the moon.

 I also would love to know how he determined when these women he studied actually conceived, and how he used this data in his study to support his theory.

I am not being overly aggressive in my criticism, just careful not to raise hope and expectation in clients who are not informed as to the basis of this study.

 best wishes

Nicola

Hello world!

I have just finished reading Robert Winston’s new book – A child against all odds – and came across some really interesting titbits.

Did you know that an italian scientist in 1866 theorized that one day freezing sperm would be available for reproduction either posthumously or otherwise?  1866???  quite something.

Did you know the first successful human pregnancy from frozen sperm occured in 1953? 

Did you know the first recorded human artificial insemination was done in 1776, by a Scottish doctor – John Hunter? But in 1322, a traveller’s account tells of an arab chieftan who stole sperm from the stallion of the neighbouring tribe to inseminate his own mares. 

Fertility treatments are neither innovative nor modern, they have only just caught up with renaissance thinking!

best wishes to new visitors to the forum, love to hear from you

Nicola