Nov 5th 2021
As mentioned before in our East to West Wellness center blog posts, ‘Infertility’ is very common among women of reproductive age. Many women begin seeing fertility specialists after having trouble conceiving only to find their fertility struggles are idiopathic.
We see many women who are healthy and at a prime reproductive age that continue to have difficulties conceiving. A patient who began bimonthly treatments over the summer for fertility came in having become pregnant once before approximately a year ago, but due to health concerns the fetus had to receive a D and E (dilation and evacuation). Since this procedure the patient struggled to become pregnant again and decided that she was going to give acupuncture a try.
This patient had no history of miscarriage or trouble conceiving, no known gynecological that could impede conception such as endometriosis, PCOS or hormonal imbalances. The patient’s partner had a sperm analysis that rendered him healthy as well. The patient began seeing a fertility specialist at this time as well but wanted to hold off on artificial reproductive therapies such as IUI and IVF until after a few cycles of acupuncture to see if we could aid in natural conception.
This patient had a regular cycle which helped expedite our treatment, often women with fertility concerns have an irregular cycle that requires hormonal regulation before we can focus on aiding in the conception itself. In this case, we treated the patient two times a month, before and during her ovulation. Targeting the ovulation phase of the menstrual cycle is what makes acupuncture very effective in assisting natural conception. The treatments are able to boost necessary hormones like estrogen, LH and FSH, these help to ensure the egg is mature and healthy. We are able to optimize ovulation, which can increase the ovulatory phase and increase the amount of cervical mucus. In this way acupuncture works in similar ways to the commonly used fertility drug ‘Clomid’, but with no adverse effects. In this case the patient also received electrical stimulation as a way to further enhance and ‘supercharge’ ovulation which further increased chances of conception. Along with this, acupuncture is able to dilate the blood vessels that bring blood to the uterus which aids in conception. After just three months of acupuncture treatment this patient became pregnant with no other intervention.
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