Problems of infertility
Human reproduction and infertility, and the technologies associated with them, whether relying on modern medical science or otherwise, are complex and in this article it is not appropriate to do much more than make reference to them.
The purpose here is to draw attention to the possible use of acupuncture for fertility treatment for those couples that are unable to conceive naturally but who choose to seek the assistance of special technologies to do so.
The cold statistics of infertility
Statistics provided by the U.S. Government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), updated to April, 2009, indicate that in America there are 7.3 million women of child-bearing age (defined as 15 to 44 years) who are unable to give birth or who have an impaired ability to do so. That accounts for almost 12% of women in that age bracket.
Infertility can be defined as being unable to conceive after attempting to do so for a period of two years, although some authorities suggest an even shorter period.
In our modern Western society, where being part of a family means so much, the inability to have children becomes more than a disappointment to couples who naturally would have expected to raise children.
In many instances male infertility is at the root of the problem but not always. While some couples accept their misfortune and move on with their lives, there are many couples who will choose to turn to medical science to aid and improve their chances to have children.
Medical science offers hope but is expensive
Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is an umbrella term used to encompass a wide range of medical interventions designed to help a women become pregnant. Such procedures are expensive and unfortunately frequently unsuccessful. The CDC statistics for 2008 indicate a success rate of about 31%, based on 46,326 live birth events that produced 61,426 infants occurring from about 150,000 assisted reproduction attempts for that year.
The possibilities of acupuncture for fertility
Acupuncture is a technique long-used in the ancient practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with its own well established routines to support reproduction and with the addition of a holistic approach that takes into consideration many other aspects of an individual’s life and environment.
Acupuncture has also found a supplementary role to modern technologies, such as invitro fertilization (IVF), where clinical studies have shown it to have significantly improved outcomes of successful healthy live births. One such study concluded that the addition of acupuncture before and after the main IVF treatment procedures had improved the success rate to 46% compared with a group of patients not having added acupuncture whose success rate was 26%.
Many logical reasons have been suggested to account for the successes of acupuncture for fertility and it is being increasingly recognized as a valid method of treatment for the condition.
In conclusion
It is also worth mentioning that acupuncture, recognized as a form of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine by U.S. health authorities, has also found success in dealing with many other chronic ailments that can diminish the quality of life.