Spring flowers are bursting through, chicks are hatching, lambs are being born. You’re stuck with a pained smile on your face, congratulating the latest friend who has announced she’s pregnant, while secretly wondering “why not ME????”
Getting pregnant is not always the easy business we expect it to be. Sure, some people manage to do it almost without thinking (“I swear, we only have to look at each other!”) – but for others it can be a long, hard, often lonely route, that continually tests both your powers of resilience and your relationship. You try for a while, go to the doctor, undergo for a series of tests, and then, often with a diagnosis of “unexplained fertility” are referred for IVF. Which is an expensive, emotional rollercoaster with only a 25% chance of success. Fantastic if it works, devastating if it doesn’t.
There IS another way. Acupuncture has been used for years to help women conceive – either with or without IVF. It’s thought to regulate female hormones and increase the flow of blood to the reproductive organs *1, increase egg production and quality *2 and most clinical trials to date suggest that acupuncture may be useful in the embryo transfer stage of in vitro fertilisation, and results in an increased pregnancy rate and a greater number of live births *3.
As someone who went through a couple of rounds of IVF & miscarriages herself, I turned to acupuncture almost as a last resort. It worked. I got pregnant, and had a healthy happy baby. Impressive, eh? I now treat many people, both men and women for fertility. How? By ensuring (a) that I structure a treatment plan that is personally tailored to what each individual needs at that particular point in time, and (b) that you are there with them and for them during their journey. As a patient once remarked “it’s such a relief to be able to speak to someone who understands exactly what I’m going through”.
If you’re hoping to conceive, either naturally or with the help of IVF, it makes sense to investigate acupuncture, to find out what it could do for you. As a member of the British Acupuncture Council I have reached high standards of qualification & commit to on-going training and safe practice. I always offer a (free) 15 minute consultation, so that you can decide if I’m the right practitioner for you. You can get in touch via my website which has all my contact details on it.
Good luck. It’s worth persevering for something (or rather someone) you really want in life.
References
*1 Stress and other factors can disrupt the function of the hypothalamic pituitary-ovarian axis (HPOA). Acupuncture promotes the release of beta-endorphin in the brain, which regulates gonadatrophin releasing hormone from the hypothalamus, follicle stimulating hormone from the pituitary gland, and oestrogen and progesterone levels from the ovary (Anderson 2007); Iincreasing blood flow to the reproductive organs (Ho 2009, Anderson 2007), which can improve the thickness of the endometrial lining, so increasing the chances of embryo implantation.
*2 increasing egg production (Jin 2009) and improving oocyte quality (Chen 2009), which could increase the chance of fertilisation.
*3 (Cheong 2008, Manheimer 2008, Kong 2009, Chen 2009, Smith 2006, Westergaard 2006)