For six months, trying to conceive looked like most people’s version of “doing it right.” I tracked ovulation. I timed things carefully. I told myself patience was the whole game. Then I got the positive test I’d been waiting for. An early scan at around six weeks showed a heartbeat, and I let myself believe we were past the scary part. At my dating scan around 12 weeks, we were told the pregnancy had stopped growing about a week after we’d seen that heartbeat — my body just hadn’t caught up yet. A few days later, I ended up in A&E with retained tissue caught in my cervix, and pain I have never felt anything close to before.

Eighteen months later, we’d had three chemical pregnancies, met with two different fertility clinics, and I’d been told I had low ovarian reserve for my age and was a poor candidate for IVF (with an AMH of 1.5–2.4 at 35). We felt no closer to meeting our baby. But I had no idea where to start.

Then, as if the universe was listening, my mum messaged me, saying she’d met someone at an event who was a fertility naturopath. They got on great, and she put me in touch with her. That’s how I met Chloe Durrant, of The Hormone Path.

What happened in the first appointment

My first session with Chloe ran close to an hour and a half. We went through my full history: sleep, digestion, stress, movement, past medications, family history, the works. She’d asked ahead of time to see my existing blood work and test results rather than starting from scratch, which I appreciated — it felt like all of those tests were still worthwhile. I’d spent so many appointments repeating the same facts about my cycle that having someone actually read my file before asking a single question felt like being taken seriously in a new way.

She wanted to know what a normal Tuesday looked like for me, not just what my hormone panel said. What I was eating, when I was eating it, how I was sleeping, how work stress was landing in my body, my whole medical and menstrual history. It felt less like a medical intake and more like someone finally trying to understand the whole picture rather than the four numbers a clinic had flagged as abnormal. By the end of that first call, she’d built a plan around food, a handful of targeted supplements based on what my existing labs already showed rather than a generic prenatal off a shelf, and a short list of tests she wanted to run that nobody had mentioned to me before. I left that appointment feeling something I hadn’t felt in months: like there was an actual next step, rather than another appointment to wait for.

Why I decided to stick with my naturopath

I booked three months with her before I’d seen a single result come back, which isn’t like me. I mull decisions for a long time, usually, and I like evidence before I commit to anything. What tipped it wasn’t a big promise. It was how she talked about naturopathy and fertility as something that sits alongside a fertility clinic rather than instead of one.

She never once suggested I pause the progesterone or skip a scan. She asked what my clinics had already ruled out so she wasn’t wasting my time or money repeating tests I’d already had, and she was upfront, more than once, when something sat outside her scope and needed a doctor’s input instead. That kind of honesty is rarer than it should be in this space, and it’s exactly what made me trust her. There’s a real difference between a practitioner who wants to be your only source of care and one who wants to be a useful part of a bigger team, and Chloe was clearly the second kind.

I also stuck with her because the pace felt human. Fertility appointments can feel transactional, in and out in fifteen minutes, onto the next patient. (My own doctor told me to “just relax and keep trying” after completely dismissing my short luteal phase, saying that “he and his wife did, and they had kids within a few cycles.” With the utmost disrespect, I am not that doctor, nor am I his wife, so his ‘advice’ was irrelevant.) Chloe’s sessions gave me room to actually process what I was hearing, ask a follow-up question I hadn’t thought of until halfway through, and leave feeling like I’d been heard rather than processed. Three months in, that alone would have been worth it, even before we found anything concrete.

Tests the clinics didn’t even mention

Chloe recommended a vaginal microbiome test for me and a seminal microbiome test for my husband, alongside a sperm DNA fragmentation test for him. None of that had come up in either fertility clinic, despite months of appointments, several scans and a stack of standard bloodwork, although I’d stumbled across the importance of balanced microbiomes in my own research.

My results showed an imbalance leaning toward BV-associated bacteria rather than the Lactobacillus-dominant environment you want to see in a healthy vaginal microbiome, which can sit under the radar without obvious symptoms. My partner’s seminal sample showed something similar, with a meaningful share of BV-associated bacteria present, too, which raised the possibility we’d been unknowingly passing an imbalance back and forth between us. Neither of us had any of the classic symptoms you’d expect to prompt a doctor to test for this in the first place, which is probably exactly why it never came up.

We treated both, under guidance, with a targeted protocol over several weeks, pausing TTC, then retested a few months later. The imbalance had cleared almost completely on both sides. It’s a strange thing, finding out your body has been out of balance in a way that never once showed up as a symptom you’d think to mention at a GP appointment. You get to feel frustrated that nobody offered this test sooner, and relieved that someone finally did, both at once.

There was an unexpected side effect of that pause, too. For those three months off TTC, I came off progesterone entirely and was just on Chloe’s protocol instead. My luteal phase, the one my own GP had waved off, stretched out by about two days on its own for most of those cycles. It’s a small number on paper, but after being told for over a year that eight or nine days was just how my body worked, watching it shift without any pharmaceutical support was a bigger deal than I expected it to be.

Finding our potential reason for the losses and the infertility

The sperm DNA fragmentation result is the one that actually gave us something to hold onto. It came back elevated. And no fertility clinic offered it to us.

Sperm DNA fragmentation refers to breaks in the genetic material carried inside sperm, and while a healthy egg can repair small amounts of that damage after fertilization, higher levels can outpace what the egg is able to fix. A meta-analysis of nearly 3,000 couples found that sperm DNA fragmentation is associated with more than double the risk of miscarriage compared with couples without it.

After years of hearing “unexplained” attached to every loss, having a plausible, testable factor felt like the ground was finally holding still under us.

It didn’t erase the grief of the losses we’d already had, and it didn’t come with guarantees for the future. What it gave us was something to actually do, instead of only waiting and hoping. That shift — from a shrug to a working theory — is the same one the founders of WeNatal describe when they talk about why male fertility kept getting left out of the conversation entirely.

We’re now working through lifestyle changes and a targeted supplement protocol aimed at improving sperm DNA integrity, with a retest planned a few months out (if needed!) to see whether it’s moved in the right direction. Sperm takes roughly three months to fully develop, so any changes now won’t show up in results overnight, and we’ve had to make peace with that timeline rather than fight it.

What the science says about naturopathy for fertility

I don’t want to oversell this, because you deserve the real picture rather than a hopeful one dressed up as certainty.

A 2024 feasibility trial looked specifically at whole-system naturopathy in women with diminished ovarian reserve, comparing naturopathic care plus usual care against usual care alone over sixteen weeks. Participants attended an initial 75-minute consultation followed by three 45-minute follow-ups, with naturopaths adjusting recommendations as things progressed rather than handing out one fixed protocol for everyone. The main finding had nothing to do with a pregnancy rate splashed across a headline. It showed the approach was safe, well tolerated by the women involved, and realistic to study properly, which is the necessary groundwork before a larger trial can answer the bigger question of whether it actually improves pregnancy outcomes.

Separately, when researchers surveyed naturopaths about how they actually manage infertility day to day, the picture that came back was less “mystical cure” and more structured, individualized care. Most reported using a wide range of strategies rather than one signature approach, combining dietary and lifestyle recommendations with supplement plans tailored to each person’s own test results, and most said they prioritize peer-reviewed evidence and coordinate with other healthcare providers rather than working in isolation.

We don’t have a definitive study that proves naturopathy improves pregnancy rates yet. But, out of everything we tested, finding one clear abnormality and having someone commit to treating it was already more than our fertility clinics had offered us. If you’ve ever been handed a normal result and sent home with no next step, you already know how much that gap costs — it’s the same gap that shows up in the labs nobody orders for you.

Where we are now

No sugarcoating it: we’re still trying. It’s only been a month since we stopped working with Chloe and she gave us the go-ahead to start trying again after our pause due to the protocol. There’s no nursery painted and no neat ending (yet). What’s different now is that we finally have a working theory instead of a shrug, a treatment plan we both believe in, and hope.

This article is one writer’s personal experience, alongside the research we cite. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for a conversation with your own physician or fertility specialist. Naturopathic care is not a replacement for fertility treatment, and no study to date has proven that it improves pregnancy rates. If something here sounds like your situation, the next step is the same one we keep coming back to: book the appointment, and ask for the tests by name.

Frequently asked questions

What does a fertility naturopath actually do?

In this writer's experience, the first consultation ran close to 90 minutes and covered her full history — sleep, digestion, stress, movement, past medications, family history, and her whole menstrual and medical background — with her existing blood work and clinic test results reviewed ahead of time rather than repeated from scratch. It produced a plan built around food, a handful of targeted supplements chosen from her existing labs rather than a generic prenatal, and a short list of tests her fertility clinics hadn't mentioned. Survey research on how naturopaths manage infertility found a similar pattern: individualized dietary and lifestyle recommendations plus supplement plans tailored to each person's own test results, rather than one signature protocol.

Can you see a naturopath and a fertility clinic at the same time?

Yes, and the good ones expect it. The naturopath in this piece never suggested pausing progesterone or skipping a scan, asked what the clinics had already ruled out so tests weren't repeated unnecessarily, and said plainly when something sat outside her scope and needed a doctor. Surveyed naturopaths also reported coordinating with other healthcare providers rather than working in isolation. Naturopathic care is meant to sit alongside a fertility clinic, not instead of one.

What is sperm DNA fragmentation, and why isn't it part of standard testing?

Sperm DNA fragmentation refers to breaks in the genetic material carried inside sperm. A healthy egg can repair small amounts of that damage after fertilization, but higher levels can outpace what the egg is able to fix. A meta-analysis of nearly 3,000 couples found sperm DNA fragmentation is associated with more than double the risk of miscarriage compared with couples without it. It is not part of a standard semen analysis at many clinics — in this writer's case, neither of two fertility clinics offered it across months of appointments. It is worth asking about by name.

What is a vaginal or seminal microbiome test?

It looks at the balance of bacteria present, rather than screening for a single infection. A healthy vaginal microbiome is typically Lactobacillus-dominant; an imbalance leaning toward BV-associated bacteria can sit under the radar with no obvious symptoms, which is often why it never gets tested. In this case both partners showed a similar imbalance with none of the classic symptoms, raising the possibility it was being passed back and forth. Both were treated under guidance over several weeks and retested a few months later, and the imbalance had cleared almost completely on both sides.

Does the evidence show naturopathy improves fertility outcomes?

Not yet — and it's important to be honest about that. A 2024 feasibility trial studied whole-system naturopathy in women with diminished ovarian reserve over sixteen weeks, comparing naturopathic care plus usual care against usual care alone. Its finding was that the approach was safe, well tolerated, and realistic to study properly — the necessary groundwork before a larger trial can answer whether it actually improves pregnancy outcomes. There is no definitive study proving it improves pregnancy rates.

How long does it take to see results from a sperm health protocol?

Sperm takes roughly three months to fully develop, so changes made today won't show up in results overnight. Retesting is typically planned a few months out rather than immediately.

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