How to Optimise and Preserve Fertility: Current Research, Lifestyle Choices and Chinese Medicine

Chinese medicine has a long history of helping infertile couples to conceive and documenting health preservation practices. In addition to providing treatment to couples and individuals wishing to conceive, modern Chinese medicine practitioners typically provide lifestyle advice in order to improve health and optimise fertility. Despite many improvements in living conditions, modern couples are exposed to numerous challenging factors that can potentially reduce their fertility. This article highlights current research in this area and combines it with traditional Chinese medicine knowledge to provide a resource that practitioners can use to advise couples and individuals wishing to conceive. Lifestyle changes can bring great benefits, especially when based on Chinese medicine differential diagnosis. However, excessively rigid advice can also be divisive and burdensome in the context of the difficult situation experienced by infertile couples, and should therefore be given with sensitivity and awareness.