This might be some good news for people struggling to get pregnant: acupuncture, administered shortly after embryos have been implanted, might actually boost the chances of a viable pregnancy. The bad news is that it's acupuncture and, therefore, slightly fringe. (The good news response to that close-minded, Western-medicine-centric statement is that the study of acupunture's effects on fertility treatments is actually being done by scientists.)
Where were we? Right. The findings are far from conclusive, but here's what the researchers are thinking:
Acupuncture involves placing very thin needles at specific points on
the body to try to control pain and reduce stress. In fertility
treatment, it is thought to increase blood flow to the uterus, relax
the cervix and inhibit "fight or flight" stress hormones that can make
it tougher for an embryo to implant.
A pool of seven studies, which included more than 1,300 women in four countries, was looked at. Only three of those studies showed positive results, but with smaller studies in the pool, there was a 65 percent boost in the odds of a pregnancy outcomes for fertility treatments that included acupuncture.
Experts warn against focusing on that number, because this type of
analysis with pooled results is not proof that acupuncture helps at
all, let alone by how much. IVF results in pregnancy about 35 percent
of the time. Adding acupuncture might boost that to around 45 percent,
the researchers said.
Still, it's something, right?
