When you’re going through IVF treatment, it can seem like your overall wellness and wellbeing are taking a huge hit in the quest for successful reproduction. The stress of these types of treatment, alongside all the hormones used, can be quite difficult to deal with, and that is why many people are turning to complementary therapy, such as acupuncture, to help them get through. Acupuncture may even help to improve the success rate of IVF by boosting fertility, and has been proved to help reduce stress.
IVF is short for invitro fertilisation, which occurs when a woman’s eggs are collected, fertilised in a laboratory and then reimplanted into the woman’s uterus. It costs a lot of money and is highly invasive, leading to strong feelings of stress to both the male and female, but largely to the woman whose body has to cope with the demands of the process.
Acupuncture is a part of the practice of traditional Chinese medicine, and it consists of inserting long, thin needles into certain points around the body (also called meridians) which are linked to certain organs or conditions.
Recent studies have been carried out, which involve trial groups being split into two halves, one being given a course of acupuncture and the other being given sham acupuncture, where needles are inserted into the body but not into the correct point.
Researchers found that women who had been given traditional treatment showed much lower levels of anxiety than those who were not given real acupuncture. In addition to this, women who had had proper acupuncture actually showed reductions in anxiety scores of up to 30 percent on their pre-treatment scores.
All this shows that when used alongside IVF, acupuncture can help women to feel calmer and better during their treatment, which can help with the process and even help to boost fertility, leading to better success rates.
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