Cape Town - Women struggling to become pregnant naturally, including those whose partners are HIV positive, will have a better chance of conceiving thanks to a new fertility clinic that opened at Netcare Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital on Tuesday.
The Holistic Assisted Reproduction Treatment (Hart) clinic – one of a handful of fertility clinics in Cape Town – uses a holistic approach combining clinical and alternative treatments such as acupuncture to improve women’s chances of conceiving.
The clinic has an in-vitro fertilisation laboratory, an andrology laboratory focusing on male infertility, and a theatre. It also has facilities for freezing sperm and fertilised embryos.
Dr Sascha Edelstein, a fertility specialist who heads the clinic, said it would bring hope to disheartened couples who were struggling to have children naturally.
It would also benefit couples where one partner was HIV positive and the other was HIV negative, and who could not have sex without protection. Staff would be able to wash HIV from seminal fluid, which normally contains cells that carry the virus.
Edelstein said the clinic would offer treatment plans that incorporated psychological wellbeing and a healthy lifestyle while maintaining the best available clinical treatment.
“Our philosophy is that there are many aspects – other than the medical side – which need to be considered when a couple has difficulty falling pregnant. By the time couples come to us it is likely that the emotional aspect of not being able to conceive has already taken a toll and this is why counselling is so important.”
Edelstein said there was scientific evidence that acupuncture improved the chances of conception because it triggered blood supply to the uterus.
The clinic would also offer acupuncture to help women relax and for “women who can’t take high doses of treatment for medical reasons”.
Edelstein said couples who struggled to have children often had physical, emotional and financial distress because fertility treatment became increasingly expensive. It cost between R2 500 and R33 000 to have such treatment.
The clinic would treat its first patients from next week. - Cape Argus