VANCOUVER—Couples who want children and can’t seem to get pregnant need a cure, not in-vitro fertilization, says pharmacist Maria Bizecki.

Bizecki, who caused controversy in 2001 after refusing to prescribe the morning-after pill, believes solving infertility requires healing inside a body rather than creating a baby outside it.

“Infertility is a major physical illness,” Bizecki told a group of about 40, mostly made up of couples, at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre April 9.

“It is a symptom of underlying disease and must be taken seriously. There are multi-faceted reasons,” including hormonal, physical, or immunological.

The mother of five condemned in-vitro fertilization and other artificial reproduction methods as not addressing the root of the issue.

“We live in a culture now, more than ever, where there is instant gratification. This paradigm shift occurred with artificial reproduction technologies, where women were not being healed anymore. There was just a focus on the take-home baby,” she said.

“Women go in with the disease, and they come back with the disease. They aren’t being healed anymore.”

Bizecki believes she is the only prescribing pharmacist in Canada with an advanced background in the Creighton Model FertilityCare System. The system teaches women to track their cycles and monitor their health and fertility.

“Infertility is only one of the things that the Creighton model helps identify in women,” she said. “Just knowing what your body is doing is so important.”

Bizecki said the Creighton system is 20-40 per cent effective when a woman charts her cycle, and up to 80 per cent effective when she adds medical help, such as progesterone suppositories or surgery, depending on the problem.

In contrast, Bizecki crunched some Canadian statistics from 2012, when 27,000 artificial reproduction cycles resulted in 5,971 live births. She calculated IVF had a total 22 per cent success rate.

She added that IVF comes with moral concerns; there are tens of thousands of frozen, unused embryos in Canada.

Local Creighton model practitioner Mirna Lewis was diagnosed with infertility in 2009, two years after her marriage.

“It felt like a slap in the face,” she said. “If you have not been expecting that kind of information and you are a lover of children and you intend to have some of your own, it’s quite a shock to have that diagnosis.”

Lewis said they were “on the threshold” of trying IVF, but hesitated for moral and practical reasons. She tried a Google search for alternative treatments and found Creighton-model-based NaPro Technology.

“It’s a very systematic way of diagnosing and then treating what is going on.” NaPro Technology uses the biomarkers a woman monitors while using the Creighton model to identify and treat the causes of her infertility.

Julia Kuester, a Creighton model practitioner living in Surrey, also struggled with an inability to conceive in the early years of marriage.

“It was a very dark time,” she said. “I read everything I could on the topic of infertility. I met with naturopaths. I did crazy things like let a woman put crystals and rocks on my back one night. I was pretty desperate.”

Kuester and her husband were considering adoption when they found out about NaPro Technology.

“Much to our surprise we learned, seven months into following the doctor’s recommendation, that I was pregnant.” The Kuester family brought their first child home on Christmas Day 2011. “I’ve come to appreciate my body and fertility more.”

Lewis agreed. “Our journey was long. It’s not a quick-fix solution. It takes diligence. It takes research. It was completely worth it.” Her son Gregory was born in October 2014.

Eight Creighton model practitioners in the Lower Mainland make up FertilityCare Vancouver. The group has been operating under that name since 2013 and was officially recognized as an organization a few months ago.

The Archdiocese of Vancouver sponsored the training for most of the practitioners.

“We’re giving information and control to couples. People should know basic things about their body,” Lewis said.

More information is available at www.fertilitycarevancouver.ca.