The Catholic Weekly 24 May 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 4 NEWS 24, May, 2020 Help us to keep the flame of faith alive in those places where it is most at risk. Make an offering today. www.aidtochurch.org 1800 101 201 In the ruins of World War II, we sent chapel trucks across Germany bringing the Sacraments to the people. Behind the Iron Curtain, we trained seminarians and formed Sisters and Brothers. In Asia, Africa and Latin America we supported fledgling Catholic communities by building churches. Today the coronavirus pandemic is causing a new havoc for suffering Christians. As the only international Catholic charity dedicated to the support of suffering and persecuted Christians, we need your help. We receive no government funding and rely totally on the support of the Catholic people. NOW THEN Helping build a brighter future for children and families in crisis. Dunlea Centre 35A Waratah Road Engadine NSW 2233 Phone 02 8508 3900 AUSTRALIA'S ORIGINAL BOYS' TOWN A place for change... www.dunleacentre.org.au ONE OUT of every 25 Aus- tralian babies born has been conceived with the use of IVF, and the technology is becom- ing embedded in the fertil- ity landscape, but Dr Mary Walsh, who serves on the board of the Australasian In- stitute for Restorative Repro- ductive Medicine, says that fertility awareness methods are advancing too. Dr Walsh belongs to a na- tional network of medical professionals and members of fertility awareness agencies who promote healthy alterna- tives to IVF (BillingsOvulation Method, the Sympto-Thermal Method and Creighton Fertil- ity Care). All are respectful of the couple’s relationship and any new life. Dr Walsh believes the IVF process not only depersonal- ises growing human embryos but falls far short in offering women the support they need when they experience infer- tility. Infertility affects about 15 in every 100 Australian cou- ples of reproductive age. The term usually refers to when a couple has been unable to conceive after 12 months of unprotected sexu- al intercourse, and also when a woman is unable to carry a pregnancy to term, accord- ing to the Australian Govern- ment’s Healthdirect website. “We call our approach ‘restorative reproduction medicine’ because it’s a clin- ical approach to infertility or sub-infertility that aims to diagnose the causes of the subfertility and to restore fer- tility as much as possible,” Dr Walsh said. “It’s a healing, restorative approach working with the Natural methods focus on holistic methodology to help couples to conceive ¾ ¾ Marilyn Rodrigues Achieving pregnancy with a deeper approach A family fertility physician in New York is pictured with a patient in 2009. PHOTO: CNS PHOTO/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ body and trying to find out what’s wrong, rather than to do what IVF often does, which is to bypass the whole thing. “In our experience the bet- ter IVF clinics will take some time to investigate why a cou- ple might be having problems with infertility, but they are much quicker to move on from that than we are. “We will walk longer with a couple on the journey and if they do decide to try IVF we remind them that if you’re ovulating, you can always come back and try again if that doesn’t work.” Dr Walsh said she has seen couples with no success con- ceiving or maintaining a preg- nancy with IVF going on to have children with the help of her Melbourne-based Fertility Assessment Clinic. “We also see often enough couples who have been to IVF doctors and been told [some- thing like] ‘you’ll never get pregnant if you don’t do IVF’ and then [they] come to us and we find they’ve got a thy- roid problem or low vitamin D or something and they get pregnant, which they might have anyway, but you feel you probably helped with that. If it hasn’t happened in the time they are with us sometimes it happens six or 12 months later. “My feeling is that our out- comes are equally as good as those from IVF in terms of babies born, but because we have a holistic approach aiming to restore physical, psychological and spiritual health as much as we can for both the man and woman I think overall it’s a more hope- ful approach. “There will always be an el- ement of mystery. “But even if you don’t have a baby at the end of it you have health that’s been well explored, you’re as healthy as you can be and so there’s al- ways hope for the future.” In brief Upskill course for nurses THE UNIVERSITY of No- tre Dame Australia is con- ducting an online course on two occasions in the near future for Registered Nurses looking to upskill, develop and refresh their knowledge of pathophys- iology and pharmacology. The new program costs just $880 and is delivered over 4 days, with a total of 36 hours of structured online study, including one-hour daily contact with our academic staff via Zoom live sessions. Upcoming dates in- clude: 2-5 June and 15-18 June. The main content areas covered in the program include person-centred care, clinical assessment and care planning, na- tional health priorities, mental health assessment and management, and general nursing skills. Participants will be awarded a certificate of completion at the end of the program and will be able to apply critical thinking and clinical rea- soning to case scenarios, demonstrate competence in advanced medication calculations, integrate knowledge of pathophys- iology and pharmacology to complex care and syn- thesise theory and prac- tice in clinical psychomo- tor skills. Numerous other skills will be developed as well. Further information: notredame.edu.au My feeling is that our outcomes are equally as good as those from IVF in terms of babies born, but because we have a holistic approach aiming to re- store physical, psychological and spiritual health as much as we can for both the man and woman I think overall it’s a more hopeful approach.” Dr Mary Walsh