Fertility Acupuncture Research

Acupuncture has been used for thousands of years to support women with their natural fertility.
Unfortunately, most of the funding for research goes to Acupuncture for IVF support rather than Acupuncture for natural fertility.

See more on how we use Acupuncture & Integrative Chinese Medicine to work with menstrual health and fertility in general.

Get started with uniquely customised fertility support.

ACUPUNCTURE & IVF RESEARCH-

  • This Meta-Analysis of 9 trials found "Acupuncture is effective to increase the chance of live births by 30% when acupuncture was compared with no treatment in nine trials of 1,980 women. “Additionally, Acupuncture was 42% more effective to increase live births when women had previously failed a cycle”. “Acupuncture does not increase the risk of miscarriage.”

  • This systematic review by Qian et al 2016 found that “Based on an analysis of the studies, Acupuncture improves the CPR [clinical pregnancy rate] among women undergoing IVF.”

  • This 2015 study of 1069 women in California, found that Whole System Chinese Medicine (individualised treatments) with weekly treatments resulted in "More live births compared to IVF alone and compared to day of transfer only Acupuncture" 

  • In a Systematic Review of high quality RCT’s, Jo et al 2017 found “Acupuncture may increase the clinical pregnancy rate and ongoing pregnancy rate and decrease the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome in women with PCOS undergoing IVF or intracytoplasmic sperm injection”

  • Zhou et al 2016 studied women with low ovarian reserve who did weekly treatments for two menstrual cycles before doing IVF compared to those who had no Acupuncture, IVF only. “The number of high quality embryo were all increased in the observation group. Also, the implantation rate and the clinical pregnancy rate were improved”

  • Shen et al 2015 found that “Acupuncture is ineffective when used ONLY on the day of oocyte retrieval BUT EFFECTIVE when used on the day of embryo transfer ”

  • This 2019 Systematic Review found Acupuncture may improve Endometrial Receptivity and increase clinical pregnancy rates. Weekly Acupuncture for 2-3 menstrual cycles showed the best results.

  • This 2022 Randomised Control Trial found Acupuncture improved Oestrogen & Progesterone levels and clinical pregnancy rates in women with PCOS undergoing IVF.


HERBAL MEDICINE & FERTILITY RESEARCH-

A 2015 Systematic Review by K. Ried of 40 RCT's studying 4000+ women  found:

  • "Chinese Herbal Medicine can improve pregnancy rates 2-fold within a 3-6 month period compared with Western medical fertility drug therapy"

  • "Mean pregnancy rates in the CHM group were 60% compared with 33% in the WM group" 

  • In addition to the pregnancy outcomes, "fertility indicators such as ovulation rates, cervical mucus score, biphasic basal body temperature, and appropriate thickness of the endometrial lining were positively influenced by Chinese Herbal Medicine"

Every woman is different.

If you would like to find out how we would address your unique situation, please contact us directly.