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Acupuncture for Pregnancy, Fertility and IVF

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Our fertility acupuncture clinic on the Gold Coast may be able to help provide you with a natural alternative assisting you through your fertility, pregnancy or IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) journey.

At Vyne Health we offer fertility acupuncture treatments that are designed to suit each individual throughout all stages of pregnancy, fertility or other gynaecological conditions. 

A body of evidence is presented on the topic of acupuncture administered for IVF and ICSI that indicates acupuncture has a significant treatment effect on clinical pregnancy and birth rate when conducted at varied time points. There is a pressing need for further research into the effectiveness of acupuncture for improving IVF outcomes. Such research needs to examine acupuncture treatment within a context that more closely resembles real world clinical practice. Given that many women undergoing IVF are utilising acupuncture and deriving benefits in addition to improving IVF outcomes (10) current research does not adequately inform patients or clinicians. Possible mechanisms by which acupuncture may treat gynaecological conditions requires further exploration, and may well represent general mechanisms by which acupuncture modulates physiology and treats a broad spectrum of pathology.

Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine can be used to help support other fertility treatments. Many health practitioners may recommend acupuncture as an adjunct treatment that may assist with IVF technologies. There is continuing research about the effectiveness of IVF treatment and you should consult with your practitioner about how acupuncture or Chinese Medicine may be able to help you before commencing. 

Research on current evidence surrounding IVF and Fertility Acupuncture

More than 40 clinical trials investigating the impact of acupuncture on IVF outcomes have been undertaken since 1999, and nine systematic reviews have been published in an attempt to make general conclusions from the data (20). From these clinical trials, the evidence is still unclear about whether a women should have acupuncture as an adjunctive therapy for IVF (19, 20). The simple reasons why evidence is inconclusive relate to issues like the heterogeneity of the studies with regard to hypotheses, subject populations, study protocols, acupuncture interventions, controls, and outcome measures. The majority of the systematic reviews did not take these factors into consideration and were not able to demonstrate significant benefits of acupuncture for IVF (14,15,16, 18). However, the systematic reviews that accounted for some of these issues in their statistical analysis methodology have demonstrated a clinically beneficial effect of acupuncture for IVF (17, 20, 21, 22).

Clinically we may see Fertility patients seeking help with the following: 

  • Stress reduction.
  • Enhanced relaxation.
  • Emotional rebalancing (i.e. assisting patients with anxiety or depression in conjunction with usual care).
  • Sperm education (in conjunction with usual care, TCM dietetic modifications).
  • Supporting the menstrual cycle based on Chinese Medicine Diagnosis – this can be an important factor leading up to conception especially if a menstrual cycle has become imbalanced or irregular after numerous IVF attempts due to medications).
  • PCOS, endometriosis (7).

Pregnancy Related Acupuncture:

Clinically we may see pregnancy patients seeking help with the following: 

  • Morning sickness, nausea (especially during the first trimester).
  • Musculoskeletal conditions due to body adaptation i.e. pain, muscles tension or stiffness (8, 9, 10, 11).
  • Back pain, hip pain and neck or shoulder pain (3, 8, 9, 10, 11).
  • Stress, anxiety or depression (3, 12, 13).
  • Pregnancy related insomnia or difficulties sleeping (13).
  • Headaches or migraines (2). 
  • Hay fever or sinus congestion (3, 24).
  • Acupressure and breathing education for labour induction or pain reduction during birth (5). 

Our practitioners understand the importance of balance. This includes understanding your needs - mentally, emotionally and physically. We do a thorough health screening consultation to learn about your current and past health history in order to deliver result-focused treatments.

Our Acupuncture treatments focus on restoring balance within the body naturally. Whether we are focusing on alleviating your presenting symptoms, we always treat underlying root cause or imbalance that may be contributing to your presenting symptoms. By doing this, our treatments can be more effective at facilitating a healing, regulating and repairing response within your body.

At Vyne Health we use gentle needling techniques that rarely create any pain or discomfort. Our acupuncturists have training in both Traditional Chinese Medicine Acupuncture and Kiiko Matsumoto Style Japanese Acupuncture and are Australian registered practitioners with AHPRA and AACMA.

If you have any questions please contact our team, we would love to hear from you.

Our aim is to deliver supportive acupuncture treatments to help you feel as calm and stress-free as possible.  

 

Acupuncture Research for Back Pain and Pelvic During Pregnancy: 

Back pain is a common complaint experienced by woman during pregnancy due to the musculoskeletal changes during babies development. Research is ongoing, however results are promising with evidence levels being grade low - moderate in quality. Opposed to back pain in general having potential positive results with moderate to high quality evidence.

  • A Study by Selva Olid 2013 found clinically important and statistically significant changes (8).
  • A study by Close 2014 - Systematic Review of CAM; found 2 high quality studies with moderate quality evidence that acupuncture or exercise, tailored too the stage of pregnancy, significantly reduced evening pelvic pain or limbo-pelvic pain. Acupuncture was superior to exercise for reducing evening pelvic pain; both acupuncture and exercise were superior to usual care; insufficient evidence (10).
  • Liddle 2015 - Cochrane Systematic Review: Comparison of interventions found there was a potential positive effect of acupuncture assisting low back pain and pelvic pain during pregnancy (11).

 

Reference List

  1. Vallahermosa DI, Santos LG, Noguera MB, Valarino FL, Barbosa C\P, 2013, Influence of Acupuncture on the outcome of in vitro fertilisation when embryo implantation has failed: a prospective randomised controlled clinical trial. Acupunct med. 31(2) pp. 157-61.

  2. Coeytaux RR, Refus D, 2016, ‘Role of acupuncture in the treatment or prevention of Migraine, Tension- type headache, or chronic headache disorders. Headache. 56 (7), pp. 1238-40).

  3. McDonald J, Janz S, 2017, ‘The Acupuncture Evidence Project: A Comparative Literature Review (Revised Edition). Brisbane: Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association Ltd; 2017. http://www.acupuncture.org.au

  4. MacPherson H, Tiilbrook H, Agbedjro D, Buckley H, Hewitt C, Forest C, 2016, Acupuncture for Irritable bowel syndrome: 2-year follow up of a randomised controlled trial. Acupuncture Med.

  5. Smith CA, 2004, Acupuncture for induction of Labour, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

  6. Betts D, 2006, The essential guide in pregnancy and childbirth, The Journal of Chinese Medicine Ltd. England.

  7. Rubi-Klein K, Kucera-Sliutz E, Nissel H, Bijak M, Stockenhauber D, Fink M, Wolkenstein E. 2010, ‘Is acupuncture in addition to conventional medicine effective as pain treatment for endometriosis?: A randomised controlled cross-over trial. Euro J Obstet Gynecol Repro Biol. 152(1):90-93.

  8. Selva Olid A, Martinez Zapata MJ, Sola I, Stojanovic Z, Uriona Tuma SM, Bonfill Cosp X. Efficacy and Safety of Needle Acupuncture for Treating Gynecologic and Obstetric Disorders: An Overview. Med Acupunct. 2013 Dec.

  9. Needle Acupuncture for Treating Gynecologic and Obstetric Disorders: An Overview. Med Acupunct. 2013 Dec 1;25(6):386-97.

  10. Close C, Sinclair M, Liddle SD, Madden E, McCullough JE, Hughes C. A systematic review investigating the effectiveness of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) for the management of low back and/or pelvic pain (LBPP) in pregnancy. J Adv Nurs. 2014 Aug;70(8):1702-16.

  11. Liddle SD, Pennick V. Interventions for preventing and treating low-back and pelvic pain during pregnancy.Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015(9):Cd001139.

  12. Acupuncture plus SSRIs superior to SSRIs alone, with an early onset of action and was safe and well tolerated; EA had greater effect than manual acupuncture (Chan 2015 – SR of 13 RCTs: 1 high quality trial, 5 moderate, 7 low).

  13. Acupuncture is effective and safe for major depressive disorder, especially in improving sleep, mood and QoL by modulating and normalising the limbic-paralimbic-neocortical network (LPNN), including the default mode network (BMN); findings conclude ‘promising evidence (Bosch 2015 - review of SRs & MAs).

  14. 14. Cheong Y, Nardo LG, Rutherford T, Ledger W. Acupuncture and herbal medicine in in vitro fertilisation: a review of the evidence for clinical practice. Hum Fertil (Camb) 2010;13:3e12.

  15.  El-Toukhy T, Sunkara SK, Khairy M, Dyer R, Khalaf Y, Coomarasamy A. A systematic review and meta-analysis of acupuncture in in vitro fertilisation. BJOG 2008;115:1203e13.

  16. El-Toukhy T, Khalaf Y. The impact of acupuncture on assisted reproductive technology outcome. Curr Opin Obstet Gynecol 2009;21:240e6.

  17. Cheong YC, Hung Yu, Ng E, Ledger WL. Acupuncture and assisted conception. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2009;(4):CD006920.

  18. Sunkara SK, Coomarasamy A, Khalaf Y, El-Toukhy T. Acupuncture and in vitro fertilization: updated meta-analysis. Hum Reprod 2009;24:2047e8.

  19. Qu F, Zhou J, Ren RX. Effects of acupuncture on the outcomes of in vitro fertilization: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Altern Complement Med 2012 May;18(5):429e39.

  20. Zheng CH, Huang GY, Zhang MM, Wang W. Effects of acupuncture on pregnancy rates in women undergoing in vitro fertilization: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Fertil Steril 2012 Mar;97(3):599e611.

  21. Manheimer E, Zhang G, Udoff L, Haramati A, Langenberg P, Berman BM, et al. RCT: effects of acupuncture on rates of pregnancy and live birth among women undergoing in vitro fertilisation: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ 2008;336(7643):545e9. 

  22. Ng EH, So WS, Gao J, Wong YY, Ho PC. The role of acupuncture in the management of subfertility. Fertil Steril 2008;90:1e13.

  23. Smith CA, Ussher JM, Perz J, Carmady B, de Lacey S. The effect of acupuncture on psychosocial outcomes for women experiencing infertility: a pilot randomized controlled trial. J Altern Complement Med 2011a;17(10): 923e30.

  24. McDonald JL, Cripps AW, Smitch PK, Smith CA, Xue CC, Golianu B, 2013, ‘The anti-inflammatory effects of acupuncture and their relevance to allergic rhinitis: a narrative review and proposed model.’ ‘Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine: eCAM, vol. 2013, p.591796.