Can acupuncture help me conceive?

Written for BabyCenter India

The BabyCentre Editorial Team answers:

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Research suggests that acupuncture may be helpful to couples undergoing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), but the verdict is still out on whether it can improve fertility in general. Although smaller studies show promising results, more research is needed before we can say for sure that this age-old therapy can help you get pregnant.

Acupuncture is based on the theory of re-balancing vital energy (or "qi," pronounced "chee") that flows through the body along certain pathways. Acupuncturists try to balance this energy to improve and restore health by stimulating specific points along the pathways with thin needles. Although it has been a staple of Chinese medicine for some 5,000 years, acupuncture has only gained acceptance in the medical community in the past few decades.

In 2002, a team of German researchers discovered that acupuncture significantly increased the odds of pregnancy among a group of 160 women who were undergoing IVF treatment. Forty-two per cent of the women who received acupuncture got pregnant, compared to 26 per cent of those who didn't receive the treatment.

Since then, more research has given support to the benefits of acupuncture for women undergoing IVF. One study, also in Germany, reported that conception and ongoing pregnancy rates were higher for women who had acupuncture treatment in the second part of their menstrual cycle (the luteal phase) following IVF or ICSI. While a Danish study found that conception rates were best improved by having an acupuncture treatment on the day the embryos were transferred into the uterus. Their findings showed that having an additional acupuncture treatment two days later did not improve the chances of conception or ongoing pregnancy.

So how does it work? Nobody really knows, but researchers think that acupuncture may help increase blood flow to the uterus and relax the muscle tissue, giving the embryos a better chance of implanting.

Acupuncture may also help male infertility. Regular treatments have been shown to improve sperm counts and motility (the strength with which the sperm swim) for men with fertility problems but not always significantly. To improve the chances of pregnancy by natural means, acupuncture treatment would need to increase a man's sperm count over the threshold needed for conception. This means a minimum of 10 to 12 million moving sperm per ejaculate, and the men in these studies didn't get up to those levels.

However, for couples considering assisted conception, acupuncture can help by improving the quality of the sperm. In a study published in 2005, researchers analysed sperm samples from men with infertility of unknown cause before and after acupuncture treatments. They found that acupuncture was associated with fewer structural defects in sperm and an increase in the number of normal sperm.

Most experts believe that we need larger and better studies, ideally random and double blind trials, using fake needles for some patients and real ones for others, in order to really know whether acupuncture is effective. In some of the studies mentioned above, the patients and healthcare providers knew that acupuncture was performed, so the studies weren't "blind" and the success of the treatment might have been due to what's known as the placebo effect. Perhaps it was the patients' belief in acupuncture, rather than the acupuncture itself, that accounted for the treatment's success.
However, in the end it doesn't matter that much whether the success of acupuncture is a placebo effect or not. The bottom line is that acupuncture is relatively safe, and if it improves fertility, even if it's only because you think it does, it may be worthwhile.

The best first step to treating any fertility problem is to contact a specialist. If you do decide to try acupuncture, look for an experienced acupuncturist, some of whom are also medical doctors. The All India Acupuncture and Oriental Medical Association can help you find one near you.

Adapted January 2009