We have something very special to celebrate at Fertile Ground.
Our senior fertility naturopath and nutritionist colleague Georgia Marrion has officially been accepted into the Doctor of Philosophy program at Southern Cross University’s National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine.
For those of us who have worked alongside Georgia for many years, the news feels both enormously exciting and entirely fitting.
Georgia is an exceptional fertility naturopath, a thoughtful clinician and one of those practitioners who keeps asking questions. Why is this happening? What haven’t we looked at yet? What does this result mean in the context of everything else we know about this person? Is there more we could understand before accepting that infertility is simply “unexplained”?
Now she gets to investigate some of those questions formally with research into unexplained infertility.
Around one in six adults globally experience infertility, and for approximately 30% of those experiencing infertility, the cause remains unconfirmed after standard investigations. They may ultimately receive a diagnosis of unexplained infertility.
But unexplained does not necessarily mean there is nothing more to understand.
Georgia’s proposed research will explore the applicability of broader physiological and nutritional testing in couples diagnosed with unexplained infertility.
Current investigations appropriately look for established causes including ovulatory dysfunction, tubal or uterine factors, diminished ovarian reserve and male factor infertility. Georgia’s research asks what we might learn by also looking more broadly at other nutritional and biochemical parameters, and what happens when several clinical or subclinical findings coexist.
It is a question that has grown directly from clinical practice.
Anyone who has spent time in fertility practice will recognise the scenario.
Someone arrives with a folder of pathology results. They have been told everything looks normal, or that their infertility is unexplained, but conception still isn’t happening.
Sometimes the testing already completed is comprehensive. Sometimes we notice important areas haven’t yet been assessed. Sometimes a second set of eyes raises another question.
This does not mean more testing is always better. Georgia’s proposal specifically acknowledges the financial burden of excessive and unnecessary investigation.
The research question is more useful than that: which broader assessments may actually provide clinically valuable information for those with unexplained infertility?
There is currently a significant research gap here. Georgia’s work aims to help us understand it.
A PhD is a significant undertaking and Georgia has assembled an impressive supervisory team.
Her primary supervisor is Professor Amie Steel, alongside Dr Carolyn Ledowsky and Dr Danielle Schoenaker, bringing together expertise across naturopathic medicine, research, nutrition, preconception and reproductive health.
We are incredibly proud that Georgia’s application has been accepted, and excited about what the coming years may uncover.
It is also particularly meaningful to see research emerging from the everyday clinical work that has been happening at Fertile Ground for so many years.
Thousands of fertility conversations. Thousands of pathology results reviewed. Questions asked between practitioners. Referrals between naturopaths, acupuncturists, GPs and fertility specialists. Patients who have allowed us to look closely at their health and ask whether there might be another piece of the puzzle worth investigating.
Clinical practice generates questions. Research gives us another way to explore them.
Georgia’s PhD will take several years, but it won’t be taking her away from clinical practice. She will continue seeing patients at Fertile Ground on Thursdays, Fridays and alternate Saturdays from 6 October 2026 (including Wednesdays until then), continuing the fertility and preconception work that has helped inspire the questions behind her research.
We will have plenty more to share as the research develops. For now, though, this is simply a moment to celebrate Georgia’s curiosity, rigour and years of dedication to fertility and preconception care, an important next step for a practitioner we value enormously, and the possibility that research arising from real-world clinical practice may contribute to a better understanding of unexplained infertility well beyond the walls of Fertile Ground.
Congratulations Georgia. We are enormously proud of you and can’t wait to see where this research leads.