Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 3, March 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

Physician works to help childless couples

By JAMES BUSH

Dr. Xin Dong "Rosie" Ma keeps a big book of baby photos in the office of her clinic in the Pinehurst neighborhood.

But the pride she shows while leafing through its pages isn't maternal: these photos are of the children of former fertility patients at the Seattle Chinese Medical Center and Women's Health Center, who have been able to conceive with the help of traditional Chinese medicine techniques.

Leafing through the book, she points out Christmas cards and notes from former patients. Some patients continued their treatment and had a second child; one gave birth to twins. "Everybody has a story," she says.

Ma's story is an interesting one.

Raised in Beijing, China, she studied at the Hei Long Jiang Traditional Chinese Medicine University. Her lessons were in acupuncture, the better-known branch of traditional Chinese medicine, and in the use of medicinal herbs to treat various ailments.

Traditional Chinese medicine also uses techniques including massage, dietary therapy, meditation and exercise, with the goal of promoting the body's ability to heal itself. Ma is a licensed acupuncturist and a doctor of oriental medicine.

Her first-year herbal medical textbook resembles a botany book with its descriptions of plants and their medicinal properties. The first year of traditional Chinese medicine study generally involves learning the names, properties, and medical effects of the various herbs, she says. Then, students are taught how using different combinations of herbs can vary their effects.

While treating illnesses using herbs may seem archaic from the Western point of view, Ma points out that countless generations of Chinese physicians have successfully practiced medicine using herbal treatments. "Chinese Herbal medicine has 5,000 years of history," she says. "Western medicine has been in our country just 100 years."

These centuries of careful study and daily practice have taught Chinese physicians the exact physical effects of herbal treatments. For example, her fertility treatments can be tailored to address many different physical conditions which are blocking conception. Using herbs, she can make a woman's eggs larger, soften the wall of the uterus to help eggs attach themselves, or treat problems with male sperm.

Ma's fertility patients are typically tough cases. Most, especially her American patients, have already tried the infertility programs at Swedish Hospital and Medical Center or the University of Washington Medical Center, with little success. "I treat them a little differently," she says.

With the growing popularity of alternative medicine in the U.S., herbs are readily available in this country, says Ma. Her major supplier is located in San Francisco, while she also purchases powdered, concentrated herbs from companies in Taiwan and China. Her herb dispensary, which takes up an entire room in her clinic, smells like a giant spice rack. Most herbal treatments are taken orally, although some skin conditions are treated through external applications or soaking in an herbal formula.

The former chief of the medical affairs department at Da Qing Municipal Hospital, Ma first came to the U.S. in 1991 as part of an academic exchange program. She has taught classes at the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and Bastyr University. Her major field of study is gynecology, in which she uses a combination of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine to address medical issues, including infertility. She founded her North Seattle clinic in 1996.

While she is probably best known for her fertility treatments, Ma also uses traditional Chinese medicine techniques to treat many other ailments, including diabetes, colon, stomach problems, hypertension and back pain. "We have very good success," she says.

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The Seattle Chinese Medical Center and Women's Health Center is located at 11532 15th Ave. NE, Suite 102. For more information, call 363-8160.