In Vitro Fertility Goddess
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Source: Fertility Plus, Auckland
Date: Wednesday 22 October 2008
The use of acupuncture during IVF treatment has the potential to significantly boost a woman's chances of achieving a successful pregnancy.
A new study has revealed that a 25 minute acupuncture treatment both before and after the embryo transfer increase the rate of a live birth.
Professor Neil Johnson, the medical director of Fertility Plus in Auckland and lead author of this study says that ""on the basis of the current level of evidence we have, if nine women have acupuncture around the time of embryo transfer with IVF there will be one extra live born baby."
"That figure looks pretty good, especially to women wanting to do all they can to have a baby", he added.
Professor Johnson findings are based a major scientific review of all the most recent and major studies on the benefits of acupuncture during IVF and how it impacts on fertility in general.
But while he found there to evidence that acupuncture administered around the time of embryo transfer really does help, it doesn't appear to harness the same results when used at other times during conception.
"There's no really robust evidence about the effectiveness of acupuncture for couples trying to get pregnant naturally, " he said.
He said while traditional Chinese practitioners believed acupuncture worked by improving energy flow through pathways in the body, the view in conventional medicine was that it inhibited the nervous system, which improves pelvic blood flow or makes the uterus "quieter".
"It might just be that relaxing and having some TLC at this stressful time is where the benefit comes in, but it would seem there's something more at work," Professor Johnson said.
He said the therapy had been widely embraced by IVF patients in Auckland, with those who had the poorest pregnancy chance benefiting the most.
But the findings presented this week at a fertility conference in Brisbane have been met by scepticism by some fertility experts who believe it stretches the existing scientific data too far.
Professor Michael Chapman from IVF Australia said that while acupuncture had the strongest evidence of any alternative therapy for use in fertility, the studies were small and "relatively inconclusive".
He concluded that "the evidence to date would suggest it's not harmful but I certainly wouldn't recommend every IVF patient rush out and get it.
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