Increasingly in the area of fertility therapy, medical doctors are concentrating on prescribing more natural substances for women. It would be wise to try to locate one in your area who will work with you and understand your needs when it comes to natural hormone replacement therapy. A case in point: natural progesterone for conception. Although under ideal conditions it sometimes works as a contraceptive, progesterone is also, conversely, used in some fertility clinics.Jerome Check, M.D., an infertility specialist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Thomas Jefferson University and Hahnemann University, says that "too often physicians will treat the infertility problem with strong medication or even surgery without checking progesterone levels first...But for many women, progesterone therapy has been very effective in helping them to become pregnant and to carry the child to term. Only after this treatment in tried should more drastic procedures be considered."
An adequate amount of progesterone is crucial to a woman who is trying to become pregnant. It actually prepares the uterine wall for implantation of the fertilized egg. Without sufficient progesterone, the egg will be expelled. Progesterone treatment can also be used to induce fertility when there appears to be ovulatory dysfunction. A study was performed involving fifty women who had lived with infertility for a minimum of one-and-a-half years. Seventy percent of the women conceived within six months while exclusively using progesterone therapy, reports Dr. Check. The Efficacy of Progesterone in Achieving Successful Pregnancy describes this group:
Five patients had a history of previous spontaneous abortions; all others had primary infertility. The range of ages was 18 to 39, with an average of 31. Their average period of infertility was 2.8 years in the 35 patients who conceived, and 2.7 years for the entire group.
