IVF and Acupuncture in Combination Increase the Odds for Pregnancy

By Marc Sklar, L.Ac.

This article is posted with permission of the author and by Reproductive Wellness, Inc. Material was developed for use on the Reproductive Wellness site at www.rwclinic.com.

 

Women who undergo IVF increase their chances of pregnancy if they are also treated with acupuncture, a new analysis suggests.

The benefits may be large – a 65% increase in the chance of becoming pregnant, and a 91% increase in the number of live births.

Women who undergo IVF increase their chances of pregnancy if they are also treated with acupuncture, a new analysis suggests.

The benefits may be large – a 65% increase in the chance of becoming pregnant, and a 91% increase in the number of live births.

The results have emerged from a meta-analysis, a technique in which the results of many previous trials are pooled. A team led by Dr Eric Manheimer of the University of Maryland School of Medicine scanned medical literature for trials that attempted to measure the effect of acupuncture on IVF success.

They found 108 trials, but rejected all but seven because of defects of methodology – such as that acupuncture was not administered within a day of IVF or was used as a form of pain relief. The seven they retained, all published since 2002 and carried out in four Western countries, involved 1,366 women. In all the trials the women were given acupuncture immediately before or after the test-tube embryo was transferred to their wombs. All the acupuncture sessions lasted 25 to 30 minutes.

In British Medical Journal online, the team reports that almost all these trials reported positive findings. Taken together they showed a 65% increase in establishment of pregnancy, an 87 per cent increase in continuing pregnancy, and a 91% increase in live births.

All these results were statistically significant, measured by the criterion of odds of less than one in 20 of having come about by chance. But the team says that these figures overestimate the benefits, since success rates even without acupuncture are relatively high.

It is more realistic, the report says, to measure the results on a “number needed to treat” basis. This is the method that assesses how many women need to be treated to achieve a single extra pregnancy – and the answer is ten. Even on this basis it is a striking result, especially as nobody has any idea why acupuncture should be having this effect.