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Rating: 
Summary: Helpful and comprehensive guide to holistic approaches
Review: As a relative newcomer to the field of natural/holistic remedies and appraoches, I found this book to be highly useful. I really appreciated how clearly everything is laid out. I found a great web site, fertileheart.com, that deals with similar topics and would be of interest to those in similar situations.
Rating: 
Summary: for beginners only
Review: I think this book may be helpful to people who have absolutely no experience with holistic therapies, but if you are not new to alternatives, please make another choice. This book will not be worth your money. It basically lists the alternatives available (homeopathy, reflexology, accupuncture, etc.) and some testimonials for each type of alternative.
Rating: 
Summary: Just Not Very Good
Review: I'm a big fan of using natural means to overcome fertility issues and have used them with great success myself. I've truly enjoyed some other books I've read on this subject and have found them very useful. I had high hopes for this book as well, but found some really serious problems with it. First of all, I was expecting a book on actual Natural methods of enhancing fertility [kind of like "Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition" I suppose]. The first third of this book is about nothing but conventional medical treatment. That's kind of annoying, but my real problem is that I don't think its even covered well - for example, she's listing "pros and cons" of all these different medical treatments and leaving out pretty important things [like mood swings and depression being a side effect of Clomid - pretty well accepted I think]. I also had a real conflict with this book as a Catholic. [This may be irrelevant to many readers, but I'll include my concerns here anyway in case they are helpful to some]. She makes an erroneous and inflammatory comment about the Catholic Church in a section on "Emotional issues with Infertility" where she says that "some Churches are extremely hard on Infertile couples. But there has been a breakthrough with the Catholic Church in that they have recently accepted a proceedure to open blocked fallopian tubes.". [The Catholic Church is the only Church mentioned by name, definitely seeming to single it out]. The author comes accross as pretty negative towards the Catholic Church and insinuates that the Catholic church doesn't support infertility treatment. This is actually untrue - the Church is *extremely* supportive of treatment for infertility [including surgery to open tubes, certain drug therapys such as Clomid, etc]. What the Church absolutely DOES not support or condone is proceedures where embryos are created and then destroyed - for *Catholics* that is Murder and it is unconscionable. The Church also doesn't condon artificial insemination or cloning [which violate the God given nature of conception according to our religious beliefs]. She doesn't cover this at all and leaves the reader with the impression that the mean old Catholic Church just doesn't want poor infertile couples to get any help at all. I had a real problem with the book morally - under her section on InVitro Fertilization she doesn't even mention the fact that routinely about 20 embryos are created and all but 2 or 3 are either destroyed or frozen. She doesn't mention this as a concern or an issue in her "pros and cons" section. I think that if she is truly writing an objective book trying to educate people she should at least be *honest* about the pros and cons - for many people, creating embryos you *know* you'll destroy IS a problem. She also doesn't mention the high incidence of "selective abortion" where a woman may be implanted with multiple embryos and three or more "take" - then the doctor is likely to recommend selectively aborting some of the babies. This is also fairly routine and is a moral problem for some people. These issues are not a problem for many people, so this won't be relevant to them; but the moral issues are worth mentioning as fair warning to those with religious belief systems that don't support some of the things she's recommending. Regardless of one's beliefs, her failure to mention these things at all is NOT a balanced or honest presentation of the procedures she's purporting to describe objectively. Aside from the moral issues, I just don't think this book is very good - its not that well written [she wanders around in paragraphs and switches topics mid-stream and the book isn't edited very well]. It also doesn't really hold true with the title - it isn't really about "Natural" Fertilty Enhancement, it is trying to be more of an "all encompasing" Infertility handbook as far as I can tell, including much info on popular medical treatments. In trying to cover *everything* she covers none of it well - including the sections on natural methods. I just don't find this book outstanding in any way unfortunately.
Rating:
Summary: Just Not Very Good
Review: I'm a big fan of using natural means to overcome fertility issues and have used them with great success myself. I've truly enjoyed some other books I've read on this subject and have found them very useful. I had high hopes for this book as well, but found some really serious problems with it. First of all, I was expecting a book on actual Natural methods of enhancing fertility [kind of like "Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition" I suppose]. The first third of this book is about nothing but conventional medical treatment. That's kind of annoying, but my real problem is that I don't think its even covered well - for example, she's listing "pros and cons" of all these different medical treatments and leaving out pretty important things [like mood swings and depression being a side effect of Clomid - pretty well accepted I think]. I also had a real conflict with this book as a Catholic. [This may be irrelevant to many readers, but I'll include my concerns here anyway in case they are helpful to some]. She makes an erroneous and inflammatory comment about the Catholic Church in a section on "Emotional issues with Infertility" where she says that "some Churches are extremely hard on Infertile couples. But there has been a breakthrough with the Catholic Church in that they have recently accepted a proceedure to open blocked fallopian tubes.". [The Catholic Church is the only Church mentioned by name, definitely seeming to single it out]. The author comes accross as pretty negative towards the Catholic Church and insinuates that the Catholic church doesn't support infertility treatment. This is actually untrue - the Church is *extremely* supportive of treatment for infertility [including surgery to open tubes, certain drug therapys such as Clomid, etc]. What the Church absolutely DOES not support or condone is proceedures where embryos are created and then destroyed - for *Catholics* that is Murder and it is unconscionable. The Church also doesn't condon artificial insemination or cloning [which violate the God given nature of conception according to our religious beliefs]. She doesn't cover this at all and leaves the reader with the impression that the mean old Catholic Church just doesn't want poor infertile couples to get any help at all. I had a real problem with the book morally - under her section on InVitro Fertilization she doesn't even mention the fact that routinely about 20 embryos are created and all but 2 or 3 are either destroyed or frozen. She doesn't mention this as a concern or an issue in her "pros and cons" section. I think that if she is truly writing an objective book trying to educate people she should at least be *honest* about the pros and cons - for many people, creating embryos you *know* you'll destroy IS a problem. She also doesn't mention the high incidence of "selective abortion" where a woman may be implanted with multiple embryos and three or more "take" - then the doctor is likely to recommend selectively aborting some of the babies. This is also fairly routine and is a moral problem for some people. These issues are not a problem for many people, so this won't be relevant to them; but the moral issues are worth mentioning as fair warning to those with religious belief systems that don't support some of the things she's recommending. Regardless of one's beliefs, her failure to mention these things at all is NOT a balanced or honest presentation of the procedures she's purporting to describe objectively. Aside from the moral issues, I just don't think this book is very good - its not that well written [she wanders around in paragraphs and switches topics mid-stream and the book isn't edited very well]. It also doesn't really hold true with the title - it isn't really about "Natural" Fertilty Enhancement, it is trying to be more of an "all encompasing" Infertility handbook as far as I can tell, including much info on popular medical treatments. In trying to cover *everything* she covers none of it well - including the sections on natural methods. I just don't find this book outstanding in any way unfortunately.
Rating:
Summary: an ultra-informative resource!
Review: This book is extremely informative and a great place to start if you're looking to think "outside of the box" about fertility issues. I'd also recommend "Inconceivable" by Julia Indichova.
Rating: 
Summary: Natural conception is possible with alternative medicine
Review: This book is for couples who feel uneasy about medically assisted conception - or who have found it unsatisfactory. It is comprehensively illustrated with the case histories of people who tried alternative therapies after long periods of infertility and had the baby they wanted as a result. The book covers the drawbacks of assisted conception and explores the ways in which you can help yourselves. There are guidelines on healthy eating and suggestions as to when vitamin supplementation may be useful. It also examines environmental and work hazards and looks at the effects of stress on fertility. The book looks at the philosophies behind alternative therapies such as acupuncture, aromatherapy, cranial osteopathy, healing, herbal medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, reflexology and relaxation techniques. This information will help you decide which therapy might suit you and there is further advice on how to find a practitioner. My experience of running an infertility support group has shown me that complementary therapies can have impressive results in improving the quality of couples lives, reducing stress and helping them to become parents.
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