Infertility & Acupuncture

I wanted to use this blog post to take a peek at a study by Cochrane et al. in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine:
The main findings in the study were that acupuncture intervention resulted in significant increases in fertility and quality of life measures. It increased the ability of the recipients to engage in desired activities, such as exercise or rest, and it shortened the time to conception by half. 

Findings from regular acupuncture for 3 months: 
reduced time to conception
reduced incidence of menstrual clotting
reduced length of pain and intensity of pain
normalization of the length of the menstrual cycle
increased heaviness of menstrual flow in the acupuncture intervention participants

The multiphasic fertility acupuncture protocol tested in this trial did positively influence the women who received it compared to the women who used lifestyle modification alone. It increased their fertility awareness and improved their well-being.  Those who conceived did so in half the time of their lifestyle only peers.
Cai et al. undertook a prospective analysis of cases using a standard acupuncture protocol with a nonacupuncture control. The conclusion was that although “acupuncture did not increase the cumulative pregnancy rate, it decreased the time to achieve pregnancy” in subsequent IVF cycles.


Take a peek at the full article here!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868913/