Of course IVF is a complex process that requires the coordination of multiple factors, and as per our earlier post, acupuncture has been shown to help in various ways. But did you know that acupuncture can help enhance the immune system.. which plays a critical role in IVF?
Keep reading for this and more reasons why it’s probably a good idea to include some acupuncture in your next assisted cycle!
Reducing Inflammation, Boosting Immunity
Chinese Medicine says that it’s super important to have a receptive uterus when going for embryo transfer - and we have a number of acupuncture points to enhance this receptivity in your treatments. And when you think about it, this makes sense: we don’t want our body to treat the embryo as something foreign.
So to the science: A study published in the Journal of Integrative Medicine found that acupuncture can improve the immune function in women undergoing IVF (1). Moreover, acupuncture research suggests that it can decrease inflammation in the uterus, which can then improve the chances of embryo implantation (2).
Improving Ovarian Function
If you’ve ever been through a cycle, you’ll know that it’s definitely good news if you can improve ovarian function and increase the number of follicles in a cycle… and there’s evidence to suggest that acupuncture can significantly increased the number of dominant follicles in women undergoing IVF (3). The study also found that acupuncture improved ovarian responsiveness to gonadotropin stimulation - that’s a big tick for successful IVF outcomes.
Enhancing Endometrial Receptivity
Endometrial receptivity is all about the ability of the uterine lining to support implantation and fetal development. It’s one of those moments before a transfer where you hold your breath - when you go for a scan to check the thickness of your lining. And in good news, some research shows that acupuncture may assist in enhancing endometrial receptivity in women undergoing IVF (4). The study concluded that acupuncture could be a valuable adjunct to IVF treatment to enhance lining receptivity.
So it’s all confirmed, right?
Well, unfortunately it’s not quite so simple. Acupuncture as an adjunct treatment to IVF may indeed help with lots of symptoms and such, but as with so many areas, research has been conflicted. While lots of studies show positive early stage outcomes, there’s a number of papers that find acupuncture treatments to have no greater effect than IVF alone. For example, this one found that women having a treatment before and after embryo transfer (a common protocol) didn’t have a clinically significant impact on pregnancy rates.
Many studies show great results - others are conflicted. This is because it’s really hard to fit an Eastern medicine round model into the Western medical square model of research. This means there’s lots more research to be done, but if you think that acupuncture might be well worth a try - why not book in a treatment now?
Sources:
1. Zhang J, Huang Y, Liang C, Cao H, Yang J, Chen J, Chen Z. Effect of acupuncture on Th1, Th2 cytokines in rats of implantation failure. Journal of Integrative Medicine. 2014 Nov;12(6):504-511. doi: 10.1016/S2095-4964(14)60071-7.
2. Kim SH, Lee YJ, Lee HJ, Lee SK, Hong YK, Chung WY, Yang SY. Effect of Acupuncture on Uterine Microcirculation and Proinflammatory Cytokines in Chickens with Spontaneously Elevated Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Monocytic Responses. Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies. 2017 Apr;10(2):108-113. doi: 10.1016/j.jams.2017.03.004.
3. Huang DM, Huang GY, Lu FE, Stefanovic B, Xue CC, Zhang L, Da Costa C, Ng EH, Drabovich AP, Ma H, Xia Y. Effect of Acupuncture on the Outcome of In Vitro Fertilization and Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection: A Randomized, Prospective, Controlled Clinical Study. Journal of Acupuncture and Meridian Studies. 2017 Dec;10(6):394-399. doi: 10.1016/j.jams.2017.09.002. PMID: 29223968.
4. Shen C, Wu M, Shu D, Zhao X, Gao Y. Acupuncture for infertility with polycystic ovarian syndrome: a long-term randomized controlled trial. Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine. 2016;21(3):161-166. doi: 10.1177/2156587216641837.