King Charles helps 40 women to get pregnant (but don’t worry Camilla – it’s on his Royal Health Service ‘holistic fertility’ course!)

Dozens of couples who feared they may never become parents are celebrating the birth of their babies – thanks to King Charles.

The monarch faced scepticism when he set up a holistic fertility programme as part of his ‘Royal Health Service’. The radical project at Dumfries House, the Scottish stately home he restored in 2007, offers a range of complementary therapies said to help improve pregnancy chances.

Participants, many of whom have exhausted all help available on the NHS and face huge bills for private treatments, can try out acupuncture, reflexology, massage, yoga and hypnotherapy. The free course, which operates on both GP and self-referrals, also includes relationship counselling, cookery classes and dance lessons.

Now, on its fifth anniversary, the MoS can reveal the Fertility Wellbeing programme has helped bring 40 new babies into the world. The Prince’s Foundation, which runs Dumfries House, says half the women who have taken part in the first-of-its-kind project – some of whom were previously deemed ‘infertile’ – have gone on to become mothers soon after. In contrast, the average birth rate for IVF patients in the UK is around 20 per cent.

One of the lucky couples, Colin and Stacey Forrest, from Darvel, Ayrshire, were overjoyed to welcome baby Calvin after trying for more than two years to have a child. Mrs Forrest, whose son was born in February 2020, said: ‘We’ve never met the King but I can’t ever express our gratitude for how he’s changed our lives.’

The monarch faced scepticism when he set up a holistic fertility programme as part of his ‘Royal Health Service’. The radical project at Dumfries House (Charles pictured outside Dumfries House in 2018), the Scottish stately home he restored in 2007, offers a range of complementary therapies said to help improve pregnancy chances

Supporters say the programme’s success is validation of the views of the monarch – deemed the ‘Unscientific King’ – who said he ‘believes that safe and effective, complementary medicine can play an important role in healthcare systems’.

Over a decade ago he was criticised for calling on the NHS to recognise ‘the core human elements of mind, body and spirit’, as well as simply treating disease. In his ‘black spider memos’ – released in 2015 – it was also revealed he had lobbied the last Labour Government to change public spending plans in favour of complementary medicine.

Meaghan Miller, health and wellbeing co-ordinator for The Prince’s Foundation at Dumfries House, said: ‘The point of our Health and Wellbeing programme is to complement what the NHS is already doing.

‘Couples who come to us looking to conceive have often tried various different things, but the programme looks at how the mind and body connect and can offer that reminder to create time and space for yourself

‘Not every success story can definitely point to our programme as why they managed to conceive but everyone takes away something from the programme that can be helpful.’

The cost of running the service is covered by the Prince’s Foundation, including donations from private benefactors, as well as profits from Dumfries House Estate.

It is part of the multi-million-pound Health and Wellbeing programme at Dumfries House, dubbed the ‘Royal NHS’, which also offers holistic treatments for chronic pain, diabetes, anxiety and menopause symptoms.

It is the fruition of years of planning to bring King Charles’ vision for a better society – from organic farming to eco-housing – to life.