It has been more than 15 years since the first research paper of acupuncture in fertility by Dr. Paulus. In her paper, it was discovered that acupuncture can help IVF success rate by more than 20 percent. Since then there are more positive papers published after that.
However, till now, acupuncture is accepted by most of conventional medicine doctors as “good-to-have” for stress relief. In the research published in a 2002 issue of Fertility and Sterility noted: “acupuncture increases endorphin (the body’s feel-good hormone) production in the brain, which may ultimately help to lower stress. While undergoing acupuncture, most patients report a deep sense of relaxation and well-being.”
That is certainly not the only cause mentioned in the Dr.Paulus paper or others like Dr.Smith Coyle, Dr. Eieterle etc. If acupuncture for fertility is only based on stress relief, how can we explain such a dramatic improvement in the outcome of IVF treatment? Shall we just get some psychologists or meditation mentor to improve IVF? That is dilemma the conventional medicine to solve as conventional medicine is dealing with disease instead of people; a chemical instead of function; body parts instead of a whole body. Unfortunately, acupuncturist/society has to put up with this explanation in order to work with most of IVF doctors as most of patients are associated with.
The reality is acupuncture can work independently in fertility issue. And there are more modern explanation on why it works in addition to theories from the traditional Chinese medicine.
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