Does astrology boost your chances of a baby?

London, Jan 21 (IANS) After four­ miscarriages and six failed IVF ­treatments, Mandy Parry was so depressed that she wanted to die. But a consultation with a fertility astrologer finally fulfilled her dream of becoming a mother.

"Mark and I had spent more than 50,000 pounds on treatments and we'd both taken ­second jobs to pay for them. All the heartbreak had made me ­profoundly depressed. At times, I wanted to die. The odds were so stacked against us," Mandy said. In the five years she and her husband Mark had been trying to conceive, Mandy tried spiritual healing, feng shui, acupuncture, organic diets and a host of herbal remedies. Then, in a last attempt, Mandy consulted a fertility astrologer, the Daily Mail reports.

And now the couple is proud parents of eight-month-old Violet. And Mandy has no doubt it was astro-­fertility that has helped to fulfil her dream of becoming a mother. "Though I was sceptical, I was also desperate," says Mandy. "I don't even read my horoscope and Mark thought it was a complete waste of money. But when you want a baby as badly as I did, you will consider anything. "Since Violet was born I feel intoxicated with happiness. I still can't quite believe she's here. All of my ­scepticism has melted away."

Astro-fertility works on the assumption that there are only two or three times a year when a woman can become pregnant and go on to successfully give birth. Those windows are particular to each woman based on her and her partner's time and place of birth and the alignment of planets at those moments. It is only when the position of those planets is replicated that a woman can conceive. "It sounds like nonsense. But we'd exhausted all other options so I thought 'Why not'," says Mandy, a secondary school teacher.