Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine for Infertility
By Jason Bazilian, DAOM, MTOM, L.Ac.
Ensuring a couple’s fertility-on-demand in today’s high-pressure, high-productivity world can be stressful. And when things don’t go as ‘planned’ in the timeline of life for career and family, as is the case with an increasing number of men and women who want to start a family on their own clock and are faced with the possibility of infertility, the pressure mounts. Time-consuming and tiring, seeking reproductive assistance for infertility issues is almost like a part-time job for couples here in the U.S. and abroad. Doctors’ waiting rooms are busier than ever with ‘will this work?’ hopeful moms-to-be and couples. By some estimates there are more than 1.2 million women challenged by infertility in the United States. And the price-tag that goes along with reproductive therapies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) can become quite costly, as well, sometimes starting out as much as ten to twenty thousand dollars.
Acupuncture and Chinese medicine combined with IVF therapy have been receiving a lot of welcomed recent attention for their potentially beneficial role when utilized together. And offering up centuries of practical successes, recent and promising research, along with a simple and side-effects free approach, perhaps it’s time to really examine the options and integrate the best from the West and the East.
Western medical fertility practices are big business. And targeting complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies like acupuncture that might improve success rates is high priority for patients and providers alike. According to the National Institutes of Health data, nearly 15% of all couples experiencing some reproductive difficulty will seek out assistance with IVF or other possibly helpful assisted reproductive technology (ART).
ART, which includes practically all treatments and therapies that affect fertility (IVF, too, falls under the ART umbrella), has been used in the United States since the early 1980s. In 2006 alone, 430 clinics performed more than 142,000 ART cycles according to the Centers for Disease Control. At the same time – and many years before – acupuncture and Chinese medicine have been actively sought for hundreds of years across the Pacific Ocean in China as the primary treatment for a broad range of women’s health and menstrual-related conditions including fertility-related challenges and issues. Traditional Chinese medicine that includes acupuncture and may also include herbal medicine and other therapies is a common and natural health care option for gynecological matters in China, and a growing number of also increasingly anxious hopeful-moms and dads are also taking a closer look at this long-standing medical system for complementary fertility answers here at home. In a recent clinical review in the British Medical Journal, researchers analyzed the outcomes of seven different clinical trials with more than 1,300 women and concluded that “acupuncture given as a complement to IVF increased the odds of achieving pregnancy.”
Considering that according to the National Health Interview Survey in 2007, nearly 40% of U.S. adults reported using CAM therapies in the previous year, and upwards of 80% of the populations in many developed countries globally have incorporated some form of alternative or complementary medicine according to WHO data, the demand for CAM is growing steadily and rapidly. And in the field of women’s health and fertility medicine, individuals and families that experience challenges with fertility are beginning to increasingly take advantage of CAM therapies with acupuncture leading the way.
So, how does it work? While researchers admit that there is still much to learn in order to understand exactly what are the mechanisms underlying acupuncture, a growing number of studies suggest that acupuncture may assist or benefit in one or more – or a combination – of the following ways:
- By increasing circulation and helping regulate and balance body temperature, providing a boost to the natural functioning of the body’s internal thermostat, necessary for successful conception.
- By improving circulation (blood flow) to the uterus specifically, and as a result reducing uterine artery blood flow impedance. This allows for more healthy blood to nourish the walls of the uterus to create a more fertile environment for successful implantation of the egg.
- By releasing and increasing endorphin and enkephalin levels – our bodies’ own natural ‘feel-good’ and pain-killer neurochemicals. This response can help reduce stress and assist with feelings of anxiety and mild depression – common for women and couples trying to conceive.
- Perhaps most directly related to fertility, by helping on the day of embryo transfer for women going through IVF therapy. According to recent research, performing acupuncture immediately before and directly after the transfer of the embryo may improve the chances of a successful IVF procedure resulting in a successful outcome and healthy pregnancy.
- And acupuncture may not only be beneficial for women’s fertility issues. Based on a number of studies over the past two decades, acupuncture and Chinese medicine may help men, as well, by improving the quantity and/or quality of sperm. A 2009 study in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility also showed that sperm motility – or movement – improved with acupuncture compared with placebo.
The growing trend here in the U.S. and globally is clearly moving in the direction of utilizing traditional medicines like CAM therapies with mainstream healthcare for many of today’s challenging health issues and questions. And none of which may feel more stressful to a woman or couple than the possibility of infertility while trying to preserve the hopes and dreams of starting a family. Even as more research is done and we wait for the evidence to reveal what works for infertility with western and eastern approaches, more and more women and men continue to tackle the emotional and physical issues of challenged fertility. In the meantime, acupuncture – as a relatively inexpensive, side-effects free approach – appears to show some promise and may be worth a try alone and in particular, too, in tandem with modern assisted reproductive technologies including IVF.
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