The University of Southampton has invited 50 women who are having or who have had infertility treatment to take part in an astrological research study. They will be asked to provide the researchers with near accurate times and dates of events in their treatment, to see whether the success of their treatments might have been affected by the stars. The results will be compared with those of two other groups of women: a group of 50 who are already pregnant or planning a child, and a group of 50 women who have already had children.
The co-ordinator of the study, astrologer Pat Harris, intends to examine the personal astrological charts of the women and questionnaires answered by them to discover whether there is any connection between the positioning of the planets - especially Saturn and Jupiter - and a woman's chance of conceiving.
According to the astrologers, Saturn is thought to be linked to anxiety levels. Anxiety is one factor which might potentially explain low success rates in IVF and other fertility treatments. Jupiter is the planet most closely associated with success.
The study has been designed with the hypothesis that astrology does not affect success rates. This means that a positive result would be exciting to astrologers. Dr Kamal Ahuja of the Cromwell Hospital commented on the study, 'Where I come from one believes in these things. I have spent the last 20 years looking at things in a scientific, Western way, but you come across examples that make you stop and think'.
Sources and References
-
Can the clues to women's infertility be written in the stars?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.