IVF And Acupuncture: Fertility Besties.

Did you ever have a frenemy in highschool who was like “best friends” with your best friend? And you couldn’t stand them? And then you grew up, maybe ran into them later in life, and became really good actual friends? Maybe even more than your mutual bestie?

Yeah well, IVF and Acupuncture were once frenemies. For years they roamed in the same infertility circle, glaring at each other and trying to prove that they were the only go-to way to get pregnant.

But it turns out they should’ve been swapping cassette tapes and high fiving all along! A study in the British Medical Journal  found that the combination of IVF and Acupuncture increased the odds of clinical pregnancy by 65% compared with the control groups.

The Study looked at whether acupuncture improved rates of pregnancy and live birth when used as an adjuvant treatment to embryo transfer in women undergoing IVF. Seven trials with 1366 women undergoing in vitro fertilization were included in the meta-analyses. In all trials women received acupuncture immediately before or immediately after the embryo transfer.

Many western IVF clinics have on-staff acupuncturists. If they don’t, talk to your doctor about collaborative care when going through your IVF cycles. The odds are in your favor.