Kathryn Pearson had never believed in fascinating spiritual things. She then found herself undergoing a profound change when a shamanic healer traced his hands in the air around her body. Suddenly, with the sound of the drums, she felt an overwhelming sense of emotional release.
“I started crying,” Kathryn says. ‘It was so powerful, really intense. I left there a different person. It was like I finally had the answers I needed.’
The goal of the practice was to release stress and clear “emotional space,” expanding your “ability to receive.”
But Kathryn and her partner Dan weren’t on the two-day retreat to achieve mental balance. They had a specific goal in mind: to get pregnant.
After three years of trying unsuccessfully to have a baby, they were refused NHS fertility treatment because Kathryn’s BMI was deemed too high. Not being able to afford to go private, they were willing to explore all avenues, including alternative therapies.
Kathryn and her partner Dan with their preschool son Freddie
Today, she and Dan are proud parents to Freddie, a bright and energetic preschooler who recently celebrated his fourth birthday with a soft play party and a visit from Spider-Man.
Kathryn attributes her birth to an unconventional fertility treatment plan that advocates not only overhauling your diet and lifestyle, but also the use of crystals, shamanic healers, chakras, and even exploring how past traumas could affect your gynecological health.
It would be very easy to be skeptical if it wasn’t recommended by a qualified doctor who has been an obstetrician and gynecologist for over a decade.
In a new book called The Conception Plan, Dr. Larisa Corda details what she calls a 12-week “scientifically spiritual” program that aims to improve a couple’s chances of conceiving.
There is advice on how to monitor your cycle, as well as how often to have sex (throughout your cycle and not just in the “fertile” period around ovulation) and nutrition, encouraging couples to eat foods that promote good fertility. These include red fruits and vegetables, which have been linked to better sperm count, and leafy greens, which help regulate estrogen levels.
Dr. Corda recommends avoiding synthetic fragrances, not storing food in plastics, drinking filtered water, and wearing clothing made of natural fibers. He also explores epigenetics, a relatively new area of science that studies how behaviors and the environment affect the way genes work. “It was previously thought that health and fertility were determined by genes, which could not be changed,” he explains. ‘We now know that this is not the case for the vast majority of people.
“Epigenetics explains why changes in daily habits, diet, exercise, behaviors, environment, and even emotional state will make you more fertile (but can also make you less fertile).”
Dr. Corda also links the ability to conceive with past trauma and “energetic” health. “Repressed emotions influence a cascade of biological processes that impact overall well-being and even fertility,” he says.
Dr. Larisa Corda is an obstetrician and gynecologist who uses alternative therapies.
Dr. Corda advocates “chakra meditations” saying, “Accessing the chakras (points where information flows between the physical and energetic body) can be a powerful way to improve fertility.”
It states that a dysfunction in one area can cause a hormonal alteration. In his book, he advises couples to “activate” their chakras through daily meditation and breathing, as well as spending five minutes a day visualizing themselves as parents. Regarding crystal healing, Dr. Corda writes: “Each crystal has its own electromagnetic properties, giving it frequencies that can be used to influence our energy body.”
Of shamanic healing, he says: “Shamans were the original neuroscientists of ancient civilizations and understand how to work on the energetic and spiritual body to bring old pain and trauma into consciousness and release it.”
Of course there will be cynics. But Dr. Corda, 41, is a passionate advocate of her methods. “More and more people (doctors, nurses, midwives) are opening up to these new concepts and the growing evidence of their positive effects,” she says. “Alternative therapy is dismissed as a simple placebo effect, but even if so, it points to the power of the mind to create physical changes.”
She believes her approach could revolutionize ideas about conception. “I don’t believe in the stark limitations placed on women for not being able to get pregnant after age 40, or that there is that cliff that you suddenly fall off at age 35. Of course, sometimes there will be a biological reason why. why someone cannot get pregnant naturally or why they need to access IVF or other reproductive techniques.
‘But I firmly believe that many more people can benefit from techniques that don’t cost a lot of money and that they can do themselves. And that there is the possibility of changing that fertile window towards the later stages of life if you do things to take care of yourself.” After giving advice to women about their gynecological health through social media and in her role as a fertility expert for ITV’s This Morning, in 2019 Dr Corda launched a call for couples to try the conception methods. her.
Kathryn, 35, a team leader at a call answering service, and her partner Dan Edwards, also 35, a gas engineer, from Wrexham, had been together for six years and had been trying to have a baby. during three. While Kathryn had been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries and Dan had enlarged veins that could affect his sperm count, they had been denied fertility treatment by the NHS because she was five stone overweight.
Kathryn says, ironically, that it was going off the pill to get pregnant that caused her weight gain.
“Having a family was something we had both always wanted and at that point we would have tried anything,” he says. ‘As a woman, I felt that pregnancy should be the most natural thing to do and yet I couldn’t do it. I felt embarrassed.’
Dr. Corda recommended they follow a vegan diet, which also excluded gluten, alcohol and processed foods, thus increasing foods good for egg and sperm health. They had to eliminate as many chemicals as possible (using natural toiletries and cleaning products and minimizing contact with plastic), as well as increasing exercise.
There was a spiritual retreat in Devon, where they experienced treatments such as reiki and yes, shamanic healing.
Kathryn says they were also encouraged to have sex throughout the month. ‘Many couples don’t realize that they have to do it consistently throughout the month, as their fertile window can be unpredictable. We had sex every other day, which was exhausting, but the changes to our diet gave us energy and motivation.’
To her delight, three months later, Kathryn discovered she was pregnant. ‘I thought to myself, “Wow, was that (making Dr. Corda’s changes) all it took?” Dan celebrated with a bacon sandwich.
Dr Corda left the NHS in 2021 to write her book and last year began practicing at the Women’s Wellness center in Chelsea, London. She says it’s too early to give success rates, but many women have told her that her holistic advice has helped them get pregnant, “including those who were given a poor prognosis by others.”
Kathryn is certainly an advocate. ‘I will always be grateful that she trusted us to try something new. “I can’t wait to tell Freddie all of this one day.”
Dr Larisa Corda’s Conception Plan is available now (Penguin Life, £18.99). theconceptionplan.com