TCM & Fertility

There are lots of ways that acupuncture can help with Fertility and the IVF process. 


Studies show that Acupuncture, in conjunction with IVF, greatly enhances a woman’s chances of conception. 

So how does it work?

How acupuncture works is by tiny needles (sterile & disposable) being inserted into your body, it triggers the nervous system to relax by producing endorphins and lessens the release of cortisol into the blood stream.  Acupuncture is a successful tool that treats the root cause of infertility, increases in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) success and prepares men and women for pregnancy.

Acupuncture also has the ability to help in the following ways:

• Stress - alleviates stress as the IVF journey is a stressful one.
  
• Helps with IVF medication side effects.
  
• Regulates your immune system - can boost your immune system
  
• Reduces uterine inflammation - encourages the embryo to attach to the uterus
  
• Increased blood flow to the uterus - improves the lining of the uterus so that the embryo can get the required nutrients once it implants
  
• Improving ovarian function - improves quality eggs & regulates hormones to produce larger number of follicles.
  
• Decreases uterine contractions - to ensure that transferred embryo's are not expelled
  

Male fertility:
Acupuncture can address male fertility factors as it has the ability to increase the parameters of sperm motility, morphology and count.  This further aids fertilisation of eggs leading to viable embryos.


Please see following research findings on acupuncture in conjunction with IVF/ICSI:

A study published in 2002 shows that acupuncture treatment administered 25 minutes before and 25 minutes after IVF treatment increased success of pregnancy by 15 percent. 

Acupuncture on the day of ET significantly improves the reproductive outcome of IVF/ICSI, compared with no acupuncture:
http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(06)00212-3/abstract 

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