Acupuncture for Fertility Support
There are few things more frustrating than struggling with infertility. What comes so easily to others is difficult for you. You feel left behind as your friends grow their families. Expensive fertility treatments may be stressing your finances and causing uncomfortable side effects. Each cycle you make a big effort and then you have to sit around and wait for weeks to find out the results. If you get your period, it's back to the drawing board. If you get a positive pregnancy test, then it can be more weeks of worry until you can rest assured that the pregnancy is well-established. You feel that you are able to make so many other things happen in your life, but this one important desire eludes you.
While there are no guarantees in life, acupuncture can go a long way in increasing your odds of conceiving and delivering a healthy baby and in helping you survive the emotional strain of infertility. I have treated many women who have come to me with fertility challenges and have succeeded in becoming pregnant and giving birth to healthy babies. The reason behind these successful outcomes is that acupuncture works by stimulating your body to repair, regulate, and heal itself. This means that it can help your hormones, your reproductive system, and your psyche return to a healthy state of balance, increasing your chances of conception whether naturally or with medical assistance.
The best way to use acupuncture to improve the chances of successful IUI or IVF is to start treatment at least three months prior to beginning a cycle. While starting acupuncture at any time during your fertility treatments can still be helpful, the sooner you begin acupuncture, the more effective it can be. Acupuncture works with your body's own processes to help you get into the best possible shape to conceive, and that takes time. It can take a few cycles to restore regularity to your period or really enrich your endometrial lining. Follicles start the gradual process of ripening three months before they release their eggs, so it helps to have a head start when optimizing egg quality is a priority. Spending some time tending your body with acupuncture prior to a medically assisted fertility cycle is an excellent way to make the most of your investment and enhance your chances of success.
In addition to preparing your body for conception in a general way, there is a specific treatment protocol for using acupuncture just before and after an IUI or IVF procedure. I recommend scheduling an acupuncture appointment one or two days prior to the date of your IUI or IVF. At that time, I will give you an acupuncture treatment that will help prepare your body I will also give you instructions for self-care at home immediately following the procedure.
