Acupuncture and Reproductive Health
Many couples trying to get pregnant find themselves turning to an age-old treatment for help -- Acupuncture -- and it's working.
Chinese Medicine has a long history when it comes to enhancing fertility for both men and women. In fact, evidence that acupuncture and herbal medicine have been used to aid fertility can be found in early medical literature dating back to 3 A.D. because of its proven effectiveness.
Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine have been embraced throughout the world, and are gaining in popularity in America as a powerful complement to western medicine to treat male and female infertility.
Many couples today are employing the assisted reproductive therapies of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) or Intra Uterine Injections (IUI). A common and effective practice of TCM today is to have an acupuncture treatment immediately before and immediately after IVF. Studies have shown this practice to increase the number of resulting pregnancies by as much as 50% as compared to IVF treatments that did not employ TCM concurrently.
Acupuncture can help enhance fertility by doing the following things:
- Regulate the menstrual cycle.
- Increase blood flow to the reproductive organs.
- Regulate hormones, impacting the flow of hormones before ovulation.
- Thicken and improve the quality of endometrial lining.
- Boost ovarian function.
- Improve egg production, both quality and quantity.
- Reduce uterine contractions that may interfere with implantation and cause miscarriage.
- Reducing psychological and physical stress and tension, which negatively affect fertility.
- Manage the side-effects of IVF medications.
- Boost the quality of sperm (in regards to motility, morphology & DNA fragmentation)
- Treat Ovarian cysts and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).
- Treat Endometriosis and fibroids.