Fertility Massage

What is Fertility Massage?

Fertility Massage is a specialised abdominal massage. It aims to relieve and improve a woman’s health and function by focussing on areas of stagnation and tension within her body, with the focus on the abdomen. An assessment of your current state of wellbeing will determine the best treatment plan for you, to aid your goal of healthy conception ( and identify any ovulation issues) in both body and mind.

How does Fertility Massage work? 

A woman is meant to hold three major responsibilities in life: reproductive, productive and a community management role, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality. Women are also meant to be the ones sustaining the development and quality of family life.  Big tasks and big responsibilities. So, if you are struggling to fill any of those shoes, and you’re thinking ahead as in pre-conception, or struggling with conception for a while, read on.
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• Fertility Massage focuses on a woman’s body and any treatment will assess her areas of need and go from there. Think abdominal area, re bowels and digestive tract. Spleen and liver- all those essential organs and more which support our essential health systems, like our circulatory system.
• What is your back like? Is it strong or immobile in areas, from long sitting hours at a desk and screen? Is it spotty from definitely no Vitamin D and a general stagnation in your skin (your body’s largest organ)?
• Is your jaw locked from grinding your teeth at night, thinking of work challenges and trying to solve them while sleeping, or not sleeping?
  Are your legs more heavy than they used to be?
  Are you liking yourself well, at the moment?
• Fertility Massage will work on all of those areas that need support and loving kindness. Neck, jaw, shoulders, back, hardworking legs and abdomen.
  They might not all get looked at in a single treatment, but come more than once, or purchase a package and all of those needy parts will get their turn!

Why is Fertility Massage Helpful?

• Specific massage techniques like lymphatic drainage or myofascial are used to identify stagnant areas (such as adhesions, scar tissue, muscular tension, digestive problems, oedema) and to rectify the areas of need.
• The focus is primarily abdominal, to relieve tension in the soft tissue areas, draining the uterus (externally), aiding digestion, detoxification, elimination and tonifying the viscera.
• The abdominal cavity – from the diaphragm to the pubic bone – houses our digestive and reproductive organs, and is an often ignored area of focus. Therefore it requires tender care and proper application of technique.
• Poor nutrition, work stress, lifestyle, relationships or other stressors can compromise a person’s health, affecting or compromising digestion and eliminatory processes.
• Psychoeducation to support grief and moving forward is an important part of this treatment.
• More support might be needed:
• Fertility Hypnotherapy 
• Fertility Counselling 

Why is lymphatic drainage beneficial for fertility massage?

• The other focus is the lymphatic system, in helping to ‘decongest’ areas at the lymphatic sites; thus improving its main function of defence, and stimulating in turn the circulatory system of which it is a part of.
• If your chest, jaw and neck need work, we may incorporate working with the Deep Lymphatic Facial Drainage & Buccal Massage
• Over time, with variable diets, variable exercise regimes, age, natural stresses of life, these vital organs and connective tissue can be damaged or at least, challenged.
• Poor health generally masks other symptoms like poor sleeping, low sexual desire or coping mechanisms like smoking, alcohol or eating binges.
• Infertility is often a result further down the track when you want to conceive, and discover that you are having problems in doing so.

Fertility Massage and the abdominal area

• In many cultures, the abdomen is considered the heart of good health.
• Abdominal massage helps to stimulate digestion and elimination.
• And increase sexual appetite and generalised wellbeing.
• In traditional forms of Oriental medicine, the approach to health is largely a preventative one, with the therapies of Acupuncture, Shiatsu, Moxa (heat treatment of tsubos/acupoints), and Anma (rubdown or massage) alongside a variety of herb-bark-root medicines,  are all techniques actively used today.

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The Western approach

The western  approach to health is generally a more medicalised one and symptomatic-based rather than holistic, and again, generally reliant on pharmaceutical drugs for symptomatic relief and in the absence of an improved outcome, surgery to effect more drastic results.

Alternative or complementary health approaches have sought to introduce a more holistic model, where the whole person is considered in making assessments of their health needs, rather than the symptomatic-based approach of conventional or allopathic medicine.

We are fortunate in the western world to have access to both models of health and healing, where there is generally a healthy crossover and overlap of the different health models. Infertility is often such a case of the ‘best of both worlds‘ where both approaches can provide a more efficacious outcome.

Abdominal massage has many benefits and can improve the possibility of fertility taking place.

Here are some of those benefits:

• Reduce stress and anxiety levels
• Uterine drainage

• Improve endocrine system and hormone levels

• Stimulate T-cell production in lymphatic system

• Relieve gastro-intestinal disorders

• Improve bowel function and elimination
• Support menstrual disorders
• Reposition displaced or malpositioned organs

The action of abdominal massage is further enhanced with the use of particular base and essential oils, and is especially effective for fertility improvement.

Other techniques – can be added to a Fertility massage such as acupoints, lymphatic drainage and non-invasive pelvic alignments to provide a cumlative effect for the best result. A combination of other natural therapies is often a useful approach, so as to enhance the outcome and the likelihood of a hoped for pregnancy.

Intestinal cleansing – One of the key steps in improving health is the foundational step of intestinal cleansing of the gut, whether it’s for weight loss, fertility or cancer. This can be accomplished by abdominal massage, exercise, diet and herbal supplements, either in combination or individually. Massage however makes the strongest first impression, as the physical touch both palpates and manipulates the tonal quality of your abdominal area more effectively than any of the others singularly.

What happens in a Fertility Massage?

The abdomen – is palpated and any areas of tension and distension are noted and gently worked on within a woman’s comfort (mostly). Abdominal breathing is encouraged to shift tension from within the abdominal area, with responses again noted for further treatment. Most tension will soften with the combination of focussed breathing and palpation of the soft tissue and underlying areas (deeper fascia) in the abdomen.

Castor oil – is highly prized as a therapeutic and beneficial oil , 90% rich in ricinoleic acid (unsaturated omega-9 fatty acid) and long used in traditional and alternative medicine. It is “generally recognised as safe and effective”. There are no side effects to castor oil, but it pays to know how to use it correctly for the right therapeutic outcomes.

Efficacy for fertility Massage

Read more about Castor oil… The oil is extracted from mature castor seeds (Ricinus communis) and is an anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, and used topically for certain skin conditions, reduces pain and stimulates the immune system.

For improving fertility outcomes – castor oil in conjunction with abdominal massage, is absorbed into the skin (epidermis and the dermis layers) to aid the skin,  joints and the intestine, and also stimulating both T-cell production in the lymphocytes and circulation of the lymphatic system. Abdominal massage can be further enhanced by castor oil cloth applications, sealed in by plastic wrap and topped with either a heat pad or hot water bottle, and left for 30minutes to an hour. There is no doubt that a warm hot water bottle on a tummy is very soothing and comforting, and causes a person, whether in a therapeutic setting or at home, to enjoy a sedative experiencetemporary respite

Edgar Cayce (the “Father of Holistic Medicine”) used and recommended castor oil as the treatment for a variety of ailments and listed over 30 physiologic functions of castor oil including:

• Increasing eliminations, lymphatic circulation, relaxation
• stimulating the liver, gall bladder, lacteal duct and circulation (absorbs dietary fats in the small intestine) and cecum
• Dissolving and removing adhesions, lesions and gallstones
• Relieving pain
• Reducing flatulence, inflammation, nausea, swelling
• Improving intestinal assimilation
• Co-ordinating liver-kidney function

These claims have been tested by doctors and naturopaths alike and considered both safe and effective, despite science not knowing exactly how castor oil works.

In terms of fertility or rather difficulty in conceiving, it is thought that some women and male partners, have such difficulty through years of living an unhealthy lifestyle and poor nutrition. The use of castor oil in conjunction with other therapies, has a number of beneficial effects on the body to induce an improved health state for conception to be more likely to happen.

Skin conditions are often generated by an unhealthy colon – and the build-up of stored wastes slowing down the lymphatic system. Castor oil stimulates the lymphatic system, specifically the flow of lymph which accumulates wastes and toxins from in the body, and helps to improve the digestive-eliminatory tract. This in turn, helps to improve immune response, producing more antibodies to kill off viruses, fungi, bacteria and cancer cells.

Further studies on Castor oil show that it produces prostanoids, which are precursors to prostaglandins, which is how castor oil can produce the beneficial effects that it does. Prostaglandins are a group of hormone-like lipid compounds derived from fatty acids (the link between castor oil and prostaglandins). They are mediators in the body and have a variety of strong pysiological effects, and help to regulate the contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle tissue. In terms of women’s health, they have a wide variety of effects as in:

• Cause constriction or dilation in vascular smooth muscle cells
• Induce labour
• Regulate inflammation
• Regulate hormones
• Regulate calcium movement
• Control cell growth
• Support kidney filtration
• Support stomach to inhibit acid secretion

Self-treating

If you are self-treating, you can massage your own abdomen with any preferred base oil, such as almond, grapeseed, olive or castor (preferably cold-pressed) or other massage oil mix. Of all of these, castor oil (thicker and stickier) is the most therapeutic in its use.  Various scientific studies show that the use of castor oil peaks its lymphocyte activity at 7 hours after use and declines naturally at the end of a 24hr period, thus encouraging the importance of daily use. Hence the importance of regular manual massage, either done by yourself or intermittently by a practitioner as well. In general, a lymphatic and abdominal massage done by a practitioner, is likely to be a more sustained and thorough effort than your own and therefore recommended as part of your treatment plan to become more fertile.

Contact Claire to find out more about a treatment plan for you …

Schedule your Fertility Massage

The Healing Practice
7 Albert St
Forest Lodge (Glebe)
NSW 2037.
By appointment only.