Our Practitioners

Biography

Charmaine Dennis is a naturopath, fertility and health expert, mentor, writer, mother, and businesswoman. She is the founding director of Fertile Ground Health Group, co-creator of the Be Fertile relaxation CD series and co-author of The Breakfast Project, among other health inspired projects. Her greatest gift and inspiration is making health, wellbeing, and passionate living accessible, inspiring and achievable for everyone. 

Through her own health crisis at 34 years old (a shocking and life-threatening diagnosis of acute leukaemia in 2010) Charmaine experienced first-hand immersion into the medical system.  This transformative, life-affirming, challenging time has refocused and reinvigorated her drive for good health and living life to its fullest. Undoubtedly this experience has deepened her passion for collaborative health care.

Charmaine’s naturopathic career has followed a special interest in working with couples with infertility requiring IVF support since 1999.  She has assisted many in realising their dreams to conceive healthy, beautiful babies in collaboration with GPs and fertility specialists, acupuncturists and other health modalities. Since her own cancer experience, she can see the gaping need for more collaboration between natural and medical oncology approaches, and she is looking forward to working with more patients who need support for wellness and advocacy through their own cancer journey.

As well as mentoring and supervising students, naturopaths and other practitioners at Fertile Ground Health Group, Charmaine is running retreats and workshops for practitioners to support their business and personal development.

Biography

Gina Fox is a naturopath with over 15 years’ experience. She trained under Francesca Naish (author of Better Babies) and has a Masters in Reproductive Medicine. As well as being an experienced clinician she is a speaker, naturopathic lecturer and student clinic supervisor.

Gina is highly skilled in providing naturopathic care for women’s health issues, pre-conception health, infertility, IVF support, pregnancy care and through menopause. She treats a wide range of issues including recurrent miscarriage, thyroid, auto-immune antibodies and she has seen good results working with men to improve sperm quality. She also enjoys the post birth appointments with mother and baby, maximizing wellness for the whole family and educating parents on how to manage many common childhood illnesses. Her professional approach involves working in collaboration with doctors and specialists to create an effective co-ordinated treatment.

Gina loves to help couples achieve full-term pregnancies and give birth to beautiful healthy babies. Gina excels at addressing underlying stressors while couples achieve their optimal fertility. Her own meditation practice led her to become a meditation instructor and co-develop the Be Fertile series of guided relaxation CDs for women around conception, IVF and pregnancy support.

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Articles & Podcasts by Gina Fox

Choosing your Obstetrician
Are All Natal Multivitamins created Equal?
Staying Calm During The First Twelve Weeks
Time For a Mini Detox
Helpful Hints For a Good Night’s Sleep
How to Be Smart About Stress and Your Fertility
IVF 2 Week Wait
How to Make Meditation Part of Your Daily Routine

Biography

Rhiannon is an experienced naturopath and nutritionist, with post graduate qualifications in Fertility Education.

Specialising in male and female infertility, IVF support and pregnancy care, Rhiannon expertly supports couples and individuals in their successful efforts to overcome fertility challenges. Her care philosophy extends to supporting her patients to achieve healthy and uncomplicated pregnancies and births and healthy, happy infants and children. She particularly enjoys working with single women and same sex couples as they navigate their way through their fertility journey. Optimising male fertility and health is also an area of significant focus in Rhiannon’s practice.

Underpinning Rhiannon’s work is a passion for health and a belief that every child deserves the best start in life. Thorough and approachable, Rhiannon’s commitment to understanding each person as an individual is much appreciated by her patients.

Rhiannon is committed to the successful integration of natural and conventional medicine, and believes ideal outcomes are achieved for patients when all their health care providers are working together. She incorporates the use of lifestyle counselling, nutritional supplementation and herbal medicine to achieve optimum results for each individual patient.

Having completed birth attendant training with Rhea Dempsey, Rhiannon also assists patients in making important decisions around their birth choices.

After her many years of experience and education in the area of infertility and IVF support, Rhiannon now provides professional mentoring for naturopaths in both group and individual sessions. This highly specialised area is outside the scope of standard naturopathic education and as such, her mentoring program at Fertile Ground Health Group is a rare opportunity for Australian naturopaths to further their skills.

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Biography

Tina is a highly qualified naturopath bringing more than 20 years of experience to FGHG. After finishing her final year of studies at the Southern School of Natural Therapies, Tina worked as a naturopath in Singapore for 12 years. During her time there, she practiced in multidisciplinary clinics alongside gynaecologists/obstetricians and spent 4 years working as a naturopath in an international IVF clinic alongside a leading IVF specialist. Tina returned to Australia at the end of 2008 where she resumed practice and completed her Masters in Reproductive Medicine through the University of New South Wales.

Tina has always had a special interest in helping couples with fertility problems and has particular success in treating women with PCOS, irregular and/or absent periods as well as problems with ovulation. Over the years, Tina has treated thousands of patients providing her with a wealth of clinical experience, which coupled with her extensive qualifications, brings enormous benefit to Tina’s patients especially in the area of infertility. Tina has also assisted numerous parents regarding children’s health care problems and as a mother herself, has experienced firsthand the many benefits natural health care can bring to young children.

In addition to her clinical practice Tina works at the Southern School of Natural Therapies educating student naturopaths through her role as Clinical Supervisor.

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Biography

Sarah is a qualified and experienced naturopath, herbalist and nutritionist with more than a decade of knowledge and practice in complementary medicine. As a mother of three children and highly skilled in providing  naturopathic care, Sarah has a special interest in treating children of all ages. Her empathetic and kind nature instills comfort and confidence when providing advice to parents about their child’s health and she works well with families and individuals to find solutions for health concerns.

As a paediatric naturopath Sarah regularly updates her expertise with new research and treatment techniques to enable her to achieve best practice in traditional and evidence-based naturopathic medicine.  Her approach to family and children’s health has been fostered by the need to make it easy and effective for the family to implement any necessary changes. She provides practical knowledge, integrating dietary and lifestyle advice with naturopathic medicines to create an individual, step-by-step program; empowering you to achieve your desired health outcomes.

Along with prescribing safe, effective and practical naturopathic remedies such as herbal medicine, nutritional supplements and homeopathy when essential, Sarah can work in conjunction with other healthcare providers to ensure a collaborative and supportive approach.  Sarah shares her time between Fertile Ground Health Group and her other private practice in the inner west, providing general naturopathic treatment and caring for patients of all ages.

Babies, toddlers, school age children, teens and families are well supported under Sarah’s expert naturopathic care.  For more information about how Sarah can assist, you can read her most recent journals on our website blog page or contact reception for an appointment.

“My inspiration and satisfaction in naturopathic practice comes from supporting a family’s potential to thrive. It’s the little wins that form the basis of lifetime choices! Taking an approach to life that is based on prevention of illness first, or treatment when needed; using foods, natural medicines and healthy lifestyle choices that allow us to be the best we can be. To understand our individual constitution allows us to build a jigsaw- piece by piece; as the baby is able to thrive by feeding and settling with ease, a child is more able to play and dream as their immunity is strengthened, a teenager is energised by a balanced physical and mental state – these are the small wins that connect people and make family life joyful.” Sarah Harris, Naturopath.

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Biography

Carly is a Naturopath and Buteyko Breathing Practitioner.  She is all about teaching you simple and powerful ways to be able to enhance your healing and wellbeing using Buteyko therapy, Naturopathic lifestyle and mindset support.  Carly has a passion for helping you to retrain your nervous system balance and move out of states of stress and anxiety into restfulness and repair, to enhance sleep, help digestion, and supercharge mental clarity (although Buteyko is wonderfully applicable to a range of other conditions that extend well beyond these too).

Carly helps you to take that breath of fresh air.

She believes in making health fun, engaging, and practical.

Carly found Buteyko to be so profoundly transformative to her own health that she began galavanting around the East coast of Australia to share Buteyko with as many people as possible, and continues to do so.

To date, Carly has held Buteyko workshops, training for patients and information sessions for practitioners in Sydney, Melbourne and Byron Bay. Carly continues to offer restorative live workshops in Melbourne and country Victoria, specialty workshops for smaller groups, and one on one consultations for tailored personal care.

Carly is thrilled to be bringing Buteyko therapy to you as part of the Fertile Ground Health Group team in Melbourne, VIC.

All patients are welcome to register for the FREE Digital Buteyko Starter Pack for Stress & Anxiety Relief that Carly has created as an introduction to your first powerful Buteyko techniques.

To learn more about Buteyko read Carly’s Blog What is Buteyko?

To make an booking with Carly, follow the link to the online booking page and scroll to find the Buteyko appointment type. Make a booking with Carly

Biography

Josephine is an experienced, degree-qualified naturopath and trained fertility teacher specialising in fertility, reproductive health and pregnancy. She uses nutrition, dietary strategies, herbal medicine and lifestyle advice, to help her patients achieve their goals and is passionate about working collaboratively with other health care providers for the best outcomes of the patient.

Understanding the importance of a supportive and empathic support team through the fertility and IVF journey, Josephine aims to meet her patients where they are at, giving them strategies and resources to achieve the best outcomes possible.

Josephine also enjoys helping patients with gut health, thyroid health and stress reduction, recognising the impact of these conditions can have on both fertility and general health.

As well as general fertility, Josephine has a special interest in polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Acknowledging the different presentations of PCOS, she relishes in seeing women improve their fertility and other hormonal symptoms through individualised, tailored treatment plans. To help women better understand and combat PCOS, Josephine has authored an eBook, The PCOS Solution.

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