Fertility

Oriental medicine has a long history when it comes to enhancing fertility for both men and women.

TCM fertility treatments are found in very early literature, since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, in Zhang Zhong Jing’s (150-219 CE) discussion of diseases in women (Jin Gui Yao Lue or Essentials of the Golden Cabinet).

A systematic review study conducted in 2011 concluded that management of female infertility with Chinese Herbal Medicine can improve pregnancy rates 2-fold within a 4-month period compared with Western Medical fertility drug therapy or IVF, while a study published in Fertility and Sterility in 2005, found that acupuncture improved sperm quality in the semen of forty men with idiopathic oligospermia, asthenospermia, or teratozoospermia.

Acupuncture has also been proven to increase the positive results of IVF, when performed in situ, right before and right after embryo transfer.

When added to clomiphene therapy acupuncture increased pregnancy rates, lowered the resistance and pulsatility indices of the uterine arteries, and reduced the adverse effects caused by clomiphene.

A 3-month program of herbal prescriptions and acupuncture treatments – sometimes for both partners – is the right preparation to increase the chances of success of any fertility treatment, and sometimes all that is needed for natural conception.