At Kathleen McFarlane’s Sydney naturopathy practice, she uses herbal and nutritional medicine in combination with lifestyle modifications to assist patients with a wide variety of conditions, including IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), stress, anxiety, and excess weight. A significant number of Ms. McFarlane’s patients seek out her help with issues regarding reproductive health and fertility. For these patients, Ms. McFarlane investigates many factors that may be inhibiting conception while conditioning each partner’s body to be in its ideal state for pregnancy.
Ms. McFarlane believes that certain lifestyle factors that may be affecting a woman’s fertility without her knowledge.
“I note how much stress each patient is experiencing on a regular basis, because there is a big correlation between raised stress hormones and lowered fertility hormones,” she says.
According to Ms. McFarlane, there are a number of external environmental factors that may impact women’s fertility. These include radiation from sources including mobile phones, microwave ovens, and frequent flying. Another surprising environmental factor that Ms. McFarlane says can cause fertility complications is excessive exposure to plastics. Ms. McFarlane highlights that “Plastics have a very similar chemical structure as estrogen (part of a group of chemical structures known as xenoestrogens) and can disrupt a woman’s natural estrogen levels.”
Ms McFarlane believes her main role in assisting women with fertility issues is to help make her patients aware of lifestyle and environmental factors that could possibly inhibit their likelihood of becoming pregnant. In addition to investigating hormone levels for irregularities, women’s overall health – both body and mind – need to be studied in order for them to reach the ideal state for conception.
About Kathleen McFarlane
Kathleen McFarlane has studied herbal and nutritional medicine for over ten years and believes real health is achieved when all aspects of her patients’ lives are in balance. Using functional pathology testing alongside holistic techniques, she combines conventional and complementary medical models to investigate her patients’ overall health and identify the root cause of any disease. Kathleen McFarlane is available for interview upon request.
For more information about Kathleen McFarlane and her naturopathy practice, please visit sydneynaturopathy.com.au.