Gadsden practitioner uses Mercier Therapy to naturally promote fertility

Centers for Disease Control statistics show that 1 in 5 married women of reproductive age (15 to 49) in the United States are unable to get pregnant after a year of trying. About 1 in 4 have difficulty both getting pregnant and carrying a pregnancy to term.

According to the National Institutes of Health, 12.7% of reproductive age women seek fertility treatment each year in the United States. That generally has involved either drug treatment or in vitro fertilization, but a natural option has surfaced in the last couple of decades — and has come to Gadsden.

Tori Black is the first local practitioner, and only the second in Alabama (the other is in Vernon), of Mercier Therapy. Simply Woman + Womb is based in Face It on Fifth, a women’s health and beauty hub at 108 S. Fifth St. in Gadsden.

The therapy bears the name of the person who devised it 18 years ago: Jennifer Mercier, a doula, midwife and naturopath from St. Charles, Illinois. The idea is simple: use external deep pelvic massage and manipulation to promote blood flow and mobility in that area and, hopefully, promote fertility.

The results? Black provided information in an article in Midwifery & Childbirth News by Mercier and another practitioner, Karen Miller of Arkansas, that showed of 48 women ages 28 to 42 who underwent at least two sessions of the therapy at their respective clinics, 18 became pregnant within six months and 22 within one year of their first session.

“I like to tell people that it’s similar to massage mixed with physical therapy,” Black said.

“If you’re trying to get better mobility in your shoulder, you might try to see a physical therapist and they would give you exercises to make it more mobile and create blood flow into that arm,” she said. “That’s essentially what we’re doing with the womb space, the uterus, the fallopian tubes and ovaries.”

She compared it to using massage to release trigger points, such as a knot in a muscle.

Scar tissue from abdominal surgeries also can “cause things to be stagnant and not move like they’re supposed to,” Black noted, and impede blood flow. The deep massage addresses both problems.

“It also kind of wakes your ovaries up,” she said. “I joke with people that we’re literally tapping on the ovaries and saying, ‘OK, it’s time to wake up, it’s time to work.’ It’s almost like we’re bringing life back into that womb space.”

The therapy involves weekly, hourlong sessions for six weeks. “After that, it’s really beneficial to come once a month,” Black said. The cost depends on the patient’s needs, but is in the $1,200 to $2,500 range, she said, “about a tenth of a cost of in vitro fertilization.”

Black opened her practice last fall after receiving training and certification in the therapy from Mercier in Illinois.

A native of Newnan, Georgia, she holds a degree in exercise science and wellness from Jacksonville State University, and a nursing degree from Southern Union Community College in Opelika. Her résumé includes stints in hospitals on orthopedic and surgical floors, at Gadsden Regional Medical Center’s cancer center and with functional medicine (focusing on optimal body and organ function, often through holistic or alternative treatments) and fertility clinics.

Black said she’s had “a large influx of people who are very interested and very intrigued because (Mercier Therapy) is so 'now.' ” They’re also looking for options, since obstetricians generally tell patients who can’t get pregnant that they’ll have to wait a year before seeking fertility treatments.

“It’s hard being disappointed for an entire year before you can go to a fertility clinic,” she said. “And sometimes fertility clinics are overwhelming because your only options are an expensive IVF procedure and things like that.”

Black said people “are excited about there being a middle ground” that doesn’t involve a year’s wait, and is cheaper and more natural. And aside from the therapy, she coaches patients on things like nutrition, exercise and stress management.

“We’re a team and we’re going to work on it from a foundational point of view,” she said.

Visit https://simplywomanandwomb.com or https://www.facebook.com/simplywomanandwomb for more information on Black’s practice. She can be contacted at tori@simplywomanandwomb.com.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Gadsden gets Mercier Therapy practitioner