A few weeks ago, I was a guest on the Food Freedom and Fertility podcast. It got me thinking about what fertility acupuncture training for acupuncturists is still missing — and why that gap matters so much for the women we treat. We covered a lot of ground: how acupuncture works, what Eastern medicine actually means in a clinical setting, IVF support, herbs, and even the spiritual questions patients sometimes bring into the room.

But there was one moment that stopped the hosts mid-sentence. One of them looked at me and said: “Wait. You actually put the needle directly over the ovary?”

Yes. I do. And the reason why gets at something really important for every acupuncturist working in fertility to understand.

A Cold Lower Abdomen Is Not Just an Eastern Medicine Concept

Here’s what I said on the podcast:

“The majority of women who come in with fertility problems actually have a cold lower abdomen. In western medicine terms, that translates to not enough blood flow to the uterus. And when you don’t have enough blood flow, you’re not pulling the hormones from the brain down to the receptor sites.”

This is the bridge that changes everything.

A cold lower abdomen in Eastern medicine = insufficient pelvic blood flow in Western medicine = pituitary hormones not reaching their receptor sites in the ovaries and uterus.

This is not abstract. This is the actual mechanism. When you understand it through both lenses, your treatments become sharper. Your explanations land better with patients. Your outcomes improve.

What Is the Needle Actually Doing

When I needle directly over the ovaries, I’m triggering the body’s foreign body response. The body rushes blood, histamine, and lymph to that area. That local vasodilation draws pituitary hormones down the HPO axis to where they need to land.

The pituitary is pulsing FSH, LH, and estrogen cues throughout the cycle. But if blood flow to the pelvis is cold and sluggish, those signals don’t arrive with enough force to do their job. Local ovarian and uterine needling improves what I like to think of as signal reception. We’re not creating the hormones. We’re helping the body actually hear them.

I also needle behind the ears near the occiput to draw circulation to the base of the brain where the pituitary sits. Eastern pattern differentiation and Western anatomical targeting, used together. That’s where we see the most meaningful results.

What School Doesn’t Teach Us

This is the gap that good fertility acupuncture training for acupuncturists needs to close.

Here’s something worth being honest about — I wish someone had said it to me earlier in my career.

We are not taught fertility medicine in acupuncture school. We’re taught pattern differentiation, which is genuinely valuable. But we’re not taught to ask what a patient’s FSH is on Day 3. We’re not taught how to interpret an AMH result, what BCL6 is, or why a patient with a cold lower abdomen might be experiencing implantation failure after three IVF transfers.

When someone asks how to find a qualified fertility acupuncturist, I always say: look at their website. Does it use the language of fertility? Do they know AMH, FSH, LH, the HPO axis? Can you see it in how they talk about what they do?

The practitioners genuinely helping their fertility patients speak both languages. Eastern pattern and Western reproductive science, held together at the same time.

That’s not a criticism of our training. It’s just a gap that exists — and it’s worth closing if this is the population you want to serve well.

Related Post: Fertility-Focused Acupuncture in San Diego: What Makes Our Approach Different

The Space Between “Something Might Be Off” and IVF

There is a stretch of the fertility journey that often gets skipped over. It lives between “we’ve been trying for six months and something doesn’t feel right” and “you’re being referred to an REI for IVF.”

That stretch is where so much could be done. Labs reviewed. Cycle patterns assessed. Blood flow improved. A real integrative plan put in place. But it requires a practitioner who knows what they’re looking at.

That’s the space fertility acupuncturists can occupy in a really meaningful way. Not replacing the OB or the REI — but filling in what those appointments don’t have time to address. Being the person who reads the full picture, asks the deeper questions, and walks alongside a woman through the parts of this journey where she often feels most alone.

To do that well, you have to know the Western side as fluently as the Eastern side.

Related Post: Meet Your Fertility Acupuncturist: Inside a Typical Treatment Plan at Aphrodite Fertility

What a More Complete Education Looks Like in Practice

Inside AFAM, we teach:

• How to read and interpret fertility labs — AMH, FSH, LH, estradiol, progesterone, and BCL6 — and build your treatment plan around what those numbers are actually telling you
• How to phase your protocols to match where a patient is in her cycle — because the follicular phase and luteal phase call for different approaches
• How to use local pelvic needling and occiput points together to influence the full HPO axis
• How to support patients through IVF from stimulation through the two-week wait
• How to communicate with REIs and OBs so collaborative care actually happens
• How to explain all of this to patients in plain language so they feel genuinely supported

Women in the middle of a fertility journey are carrying a lot. When they find a practitioner who can hold both worlds and clearly explain what’s going on, it changes everything. That’s what we’re here to equip you to do.

Related Post: How to Read Fertility Labs Like a Practitioner (Not a Reference Range)

Why I Felt Compelled to Build This

This training was not available when I was building my practice. I pieced it together over years — studying Western reproductive medicine on my own, working alongside REIs, and learning through thousands of patient cycles what actually moved the needle (no pun intended).

I built AFAM because no acupuncturist should have to figure that out alone. More importantly, the women we’re treating deserve practitioners who already know it.

If you’re working with fertility patients and feeling like there’s a layer of clinical understanding you’re missing — there probably is. Not because you’re not a good acupuncturist. Because this specific intersection of Eastern and Western fertility medicine isn’t something most programs cover.

That’s exactly what fertility acupuncture training for acupuncturists looks like inside AFAM.

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If you want to learn more about what’s inside the mentorship, head to aphroditefertility.com/afam. We’re happy to answer questions and help you figure out if it’s the right fit for where you are in your practice.

— Emily Marson, L.Ac., Founder of Aphrodite Fertility Acupuncture & AFAM