Infertility affects more than 6 million people in the United States alone, or 1 out of every 6 couples, according to Lafayette-based Conceptions Reproductive Associates of Colorado.

And despite a common fallacy -- it's a woman's problem -- fertility difficulties are equally as likely to be caused by male difficulties. It is a combined issue in about 20 percent of infertility cases, Conceptions says.

For women, it is most commonly a problem with ovulation, according to Robyn Curtis, with the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, which has a Louisville office.

For men, it is mostly sperm health or motility, Curtis says.

But there are so many other influencing factors - dealing with a difficult conception can feel like a guessing game, says McGinnis, the new Boulder mom. That's why she recommends getting professional help after one year of trying -- and sticking to research-proven advice such as staying away from cigarettes and minimizing stress.

We've solicited the expertise of a spectrum of experts: a local acupuncturist, nutritionist-dietitians, reproductive endocrinologist-ObGyn, reproductive clinic, physician, Chinese herbal medicine practitioner, and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, as well as the results from some studies and a nontraditional pharmacy.

Here's their take on some wives' tales -- and some truths.

Enhancing fertility

Drink raspberry leaf tea. FALSE.
-- This tea may promote uterine health after you're pregnant, but does nothing for fertility. (Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy)

Have sex during a full moon. FALSE.
-- Menstrual cycles can coincide with the phases of the moon, but it doesn't matter if the moon's full if you're not ovulating. (Pharmaca)

Eat organic foods and drink purified water; eat alkaline foods. 

Garden Acupuncture in Park Slope, Brooklyn has been creating and producing informational videos over the past year explaining Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

The latest of the videos explains the importance of women keeping track of their Basal Body Temperature, BBT, throughout their menstrual cycle. This is paramount information for individuals trying to conceive because it shows their most fertile days of the month.

Information learned from a basal body temperature chart:
1. When ovulation occurs.
2. The most fertile days of the month.
3. Length of the two phases of the cycle.
4. Possible irregularities.
5. If acupuncture, herbal therapy or another form of intervention could be beneficial.



In the video, Alexander Goldberg LAc, Dipl OM, a fertility specialist, gives an easy description of how to take your temperature to get accurate results. This resting body temperature is an indication of hormone levels and processes that are occurring in the body. So, keeping track of this will give provide a clear picture of your fertility health.

Dr. Goldberg has studied directly under Dr. Randine Lews, Ph.D. author of The Infertility Cure, and The Way of the Fertile Soul. Dr. Lewis is a well-recognized authority in the field of fertility medicine and Alex is the only practitioner in Brooklyn, NY who has the esteemed privilege to study with her.

Garden Acupuncture is a family-run, small business in the heart of Park Slope. They pride themselves on individualized, affordable treatments and are committed to offering the best holistic care to the local community.

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
The Way of the Fertile Soul:
Ten Ancient Chinese Secrets to Tap into a Woman's Creative Potential
by Randine Lewis

Being fertile and fruitful can mean giving birth to a child -- but to have a fertile soul means to give birth to the true self a woman wants to be: to live a life filled with passion, strength, joy, and adventure.

In The Way of the Fertile Soul, Dr. Randine Lewis outlines ten ancient Chinese medical and Taoist secrets that hold the little-known key to successfully conceiving babies, new dreams, and fulfilling life for women at any phase in their lives.

The Way of the Fertile Soul encourages women to strive toward health, abundance, and a fruitful, joyous approach to life.

By using diagnostic questionnaires, qigong exercises, and guided meditations to help the reader understand how the elements of nature express themselves in her body, mind, and spirit, The Way of the Fertile Soul provides the tools to greatly increase a woman's chance of conceiving, identify imbalances, reduce stress, increase energy, and uncover her intrinsic creativity and express it fully.

Paperback: 240 pages
Click to order/for more info: The Way of the Fertile Soul

Start reading The Way of the Fertile Soul on your Kindle in under a minute!

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Dr. Kenneth Snell holds a baby conceived with the help of his acupuncture and herbal fertility treatment

Women who put off having children in their younger years, then seem unable to fall pregnant in their 40s, are finding new hope with Australian fertility specialist Dr. Kenneth Snell.

One such woman is Linda P, aged 44, of Sydney, a patient of his who has become pregnant after being told by three in vitro fertility doctors she is too old.

Dr. Snell, a fertility specialist practicing at his Acupuncture IVF and Fertility Clinic in Sydney, has recorded much better results than most in vitro fertilization (IVF) specialists around the world - even with patients aged over 40.

He says he believes his treatment rejuvenates the aging eggs of women over 40.

Dr. Snell says, In these times of economic uncertainty when people work longer hours for less pay, lose their jobs, study for years, go into debt and pay more for housing and almost everything else, many women and their partners cannot afford to get married, buy a home and raise a family.

Sadly, many young couples, even though both of them are working, just cannot afford children.

He says, Many find, through no fault of their own, they are well into their 30s before they can afford to have their own home and family.

Some wives then find they cannot seem to fall pregnant, he says. Some reach their 40s with their hopes dashed of ever raising a family.

I offer them new hope, with results to prove it.

In the 2007-2008 financial year, 24 female patients completed his study program, and 21 of them became pregnant and gave live birth.

Of the 21 patients who became pregnant and gave birth, 81 percent became pregnant from natural conceptions, without IVF intervention, and 19 percent from conceptions using IVF.

Of the same 21 patients, 9 percent were younger than 30 years, 48 percent were from 30 to 34 years old, 24 percent were from 35 to 40, and 19 percent were 40 or older.

Dr. Snell says he has helped achieve an 87 percent success rate for live births with his treatment program, compared with typical rates of less than about 40 percent for most IVF programs.

He tells how several patients aged in their 40s (their real names and locations withheld for privacy), had almost given up hope of becoming pregnant and giving birth until they came to him for treatment.

One is Linda P, aged 44, of Sydney. Three fertility specialists in Sydney had refused to let her into their IVF programs.

She visited one of these leading specialists three times only to be told bluntly her eggs were too old, and she had no chance of falling pregnant with her own eggs, he says.

She approached me feeling deflated and depressed in December 2008, asking if there was anything I could do to reduce the age of her eggs.

Within four weeks of receiving my unique fertility acupuncture treatment and my special fertility herbal medicine, Linda was positively pregnant.

She could not believe it when I felt her pulse and said, ‘You are pregnant. You had better confirm this with a pregnancy test.’

Linda's pregnancy was confirmed, firstly by Chinese pulse diagnosis then by a hormone test.

Dr. Snell then promptly prepared and applied further acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine to increase her hormone levels. She is visiting him three times a week for acupuncture and is taking his medicine to prevent any miscarriage due to her age.

She is now in her ninth week, and all her hormones are at their correct levels and the seventh-week scan was good, he says.

Dr. Snell says his treatment principle has been to increase progesterone production in the body, reduce the age of the eggs, affect the uterine lining and hold the embryo.

Another of his patients is Hilary U, aged 41, of Sydney. Hilary failed to become pregnant although she tried for more than a year. During that time she miscarried.

Then she tried IVF and acupuncture with herbal medicine for three months with other doctors before she approached Dr. Snell.

He treated her with his acupuncture and Chinese medicine until she eventually fell pregnant naturally. This pregnancy resulted in her giving birth.

Julie K, aged 43, of Sydney, had failed to become pregnant after completing IVF 16 times with other doctors.

Dr. Snell says, With each IVF attempt, her egg quality became worse due to overly strong IVF drugs with their side effects and her advanced age.

Then Dr. Snell began treating her with acupuncture and herbal medicine, and she became pregnant on the seventeenth IVF treatment.

On the seventeenth IVF attempt, the IVF scientist was so very surprised at the positive difference in egg quality and follicle size, he called the patient to tell her, says Dr. Snell.

Andrea L, aged 40, of Sydney, had failed to become pregnant after she and her husband had been trying for 18 months.

In that time, she also tried intrauterine insemination (IUI) twice, but unsuccessfully.

Yet after being treated by Dr. Snell, she finally fell pregnant and is now 20 weeks pregnant.

Paula C, aged 39, of Sydney, first presented to Dr. Snell with endometriosis, cysts, bleeding while ovulating, and a heavy, yellow vaginal discharge.

After taking Dr. Snell's acupuncture and Chinese medicine for 12 weeks, her health improved and she fell pregnant.

She has already given birth to her baby girl.

Dr. Snell says, Women are leaving pregnancy to very late in life due to study, work and other commitments.

Unfortunately leaving pregnancy late reduces the chances of conceiving, as the reproductive and hormonal systems do not function as well in women over 40.

Women of this age are discouraged from entering IVF programs as the statistics do not offer hope for them in an IVF program, he says.

He says his fertility treatments yield a much higher success rate than those of other doctors because his acupuncture treatment is vastly different from other acupuncturists and his herbal medicine is more potent.

Dr. Snell is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. He is a member of the Fertility Society of Australia, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association.

He says, I achieve outstanding results when my patients use the two treatments together, natural Chinese medicine and acupuncture, with or without IVF. Most women who have been through multiple IVF procedures usually fall pregnant naturally after being on my program for approximately five months.

Patients using only IVF drugs are much less successful than those using the two treatments together, he says.

I have proven with my studies which I have conducted with the cooperation of patients at my clinic over recent years, these natural medicines are not only safe but facilitate a much higher success rate for in vitro fertilization.

Results of Dr. Snell's studies were published in several online medical and health publications in 2008.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a medical process in which a woman's egg cells are fertilized by sperm outside of her womb. This process involves hormonally controlling ovulation, removing eggs from the woman's ovaries and letting sperm fertilize them in a fluid. A fertilized egg is then transferred to the uterus in an attempt to achieve pregnancy.

With intrauterine insemination (IUI), fresh or frozen and thawed sperm is artificially placed in a woman's uterus.

More information is available at Acupuncture IVF and Fertility Clinic

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:

Acupuncture and IVF: Increase IVF Success by 40-60%
by Lifang Liang

-- The information in this book can increase your success rate with in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technologies (ART) by as much as 60%.

Research has shown acupuncture alone can increase the success rate of IVF by 35%.

By also adding Chinese herbal medicine, it is Dr. Lifang Liangs experience you can almost double that increase.

In this book, Dr. Liang describes her extremely successful step-by-step protocols for combining acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine with IVF.

Whether you are a Western MD specializing in infertility, a Chinese medical practitioner, or a couple experiencing difficulties in conceiving, this book is sure to give you new hope and a new approach to dealing with this all too common and difficult condition.

Paperback: 224 pages
Click to order/for more info: Acupuncture and IVF

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Photo credit: Yvonne, by Duane J

A woman who is over age 43 or 44 years old, will often be turned away from any chance at assisted reproductive technology because of her age, and therefore poor state of her ovaries.

She may fail to respond as favorably to the gonadotropins as her younger counterpart because her eggs have become less responsive to hormonal stimulation.

She may produce few numbers of eggs, whose outer capsule is tougher and thus less capable of fertilization.

Those eggs which do become fertilized may have more inclusions during early embryologic development, meaning there are more waste products put out by the mitochondria.

Less make it to the blastocyst stage, even fewer are capable of implantation and fewer yet make it through the full embryonic development.

That is why a woman over forty is statistically less likely to give birth and is encouraged to find alternative ways of becoming a mother. She will be told she has poor quality eggs.

Her reproductive endocrinologist will strongly suggest she consider using a younger donor's eggs.

This makes her chances of having a baby, and thus her RE's [Reproductive Endocrinologist] statistics, much higher.

The reason for the lower chances of assisted reproductive success in older women is because the only portion of the hormonal process that is manipulated is the last few weeks of this many months' process.

Massive doses of gonadotropin hormones are given to the women in order to (hopefully) recruit more follicles.

This doesn't, however, make them of better quality.

Experience has shown that if the hormonal system is in perfect working order and a woman has clockwork menstrual cycles, no matter what her age, a healthy egg can be released on time.

It then has a good chance of becoming fertilized, implanting, and making it through embryologic development to become a child.

Read more: Advanced Maternal Age and Egg Quality

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
The Fertility Guide: A Couples Handbook for When You Want to Have a Baby (More Than Anything Else)
by John C., II Jarrett and Deidra T. Rausch

-- This Fertility Guide provides a concise, sensible, appropriately scientific, but yet easily understood approach to modern fertility diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Jarrett and Dr. Rausch have translated their vast and highly successful clinical experience into a must for the couple who want to have a baby more than anything else.

The most important contribution of this book is that it translates the high tech into common sense and fills an important void in the specialty... -- E.P. Peterson, MD, Past President of American Society of Reproductive Medicine, Clinical Professor Dept OB/GYN University of Michigan.

Paperback: 200 pages
Click to order/for more info: The Fertility Guide

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Pulling Down the Moon: Practitioners, patients, and a community passionate about making your dream a reality.

In 2002, in order to help other women going through what she did, Tami Quinn, who struggled for more than a year with infertility, co-founded Pulling Down the Moon with her business partner Beth Heller.

The center, which offers services that complement medical treatment for women struggling with infertility like acupuncture/TCM, support groups, nutritional counseling, therapeutic massage, and special fertility yoga, has locations in Buffalo Grove, Chicago and Highland Park.

They have walked this path and continue to pave the way. Their purpose is to support healthy conception, healthy pregnancy, and healthy families. Their pursuit is to support your journey, provide community, and turn patients into parents.

Read more

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:

Ready: Why Women Are Embracing The New Later Motherhood
by Elizabeth Gregory

-- Over the past three decades, skyrocketing numbers of women have chosen to start their families in their late thirties and early forties.

In 2005, ten times as many women had their first child between the ages of 35 and 39 as in 1975, and thirteen times as many had their first between 40 and 44.

Women now have the option to define for themselves when they're ready for family, rather than sticking to a schedule set by social convention.

As a society, however, we have yet to come to terms with the phenomenon of later motherhood, and women who decide it makes sense for them to delay pregnancy often find themselves confronted with alarmist warnings about the dangers of waiting too long.

In Ready, Elizabeth Gregory tracks the burgeoning trend of new later motherhood and demonstrates that for many women today, waiting for family works best.

She provides compelling evidence of the benefits of having children later -- by birth or by adoption.

Paperback: 336 pages
Click to order/for more info: Ready

Start reading Ready on your Kindle in under a minute!

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

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Can getting pregnant be swankier than this?

In recent times, there is a surge in upmarket fertility retreats around the world as they are luring couples, desperate to boost their chances of having a baby, by promising natural solutions to infertility problems - while they holiday!

The Fertile Soul in the US uses a mix of oriental medicine and western teachings - including meditation and relaxation, yoga, qi gong, dance, dietary advice, self-massage techniques and acupuncture.

Such life-changing retreats have a success rate of more than 30 per cent, while they claim to resolve complex health problems, including premature ovarian failure and poor ovarian response.

Read more: Fertility Vacations - Conceiving During a Swanky Holiday
Photo Credit: TheFertileSoul.com
All rights reserved

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
Pregnancy Miracle
by Lisa Olsen

-- A 279-page, instantly downloadable e-book presenting a 5-step, sure-fire, 100% guaranteed, clinically proven holistic and ancient Chinese system for permanently reversing your infertility and your partner's infertility disorders and getting pregnant quickly, naturally and safely within 2-4 months without drugs, dangerous surgeries, side effects, or expensive infertility treatments.

It's probably the most powerful infertility reversal system ever developed, and currently the best-selling e-book of its kind on the entire Web!

Here's what the author Lisa Olson had to say about her incredible program:
After 14 years of trial, error, and experimentation, I finally discovered the answer to infertility and developed a fool-proof system to getting pregnant the natural way - no drugs, or surgery necessary.

It took a lot of research to get to where I am today, to know exactly what works and what doesn't. Yes, after desperate trial and error, countless of useless treatments, disappointments, and agony, a simple holistic system opened the door to my new and much brighter life of motherhood.

I was also excited to see that my other infertility related symptoms had diminished. After years of waiting, I was finally free from Infertility! I have become a proud mother of two.

And now I'm finally revealing my secrets in this new 'encyclopedia' of pregnancy called, Pregnancy Miracle.

I will be your own personal coach, take you by the hand, and lead you through the lousy advice, hype and gimmicks... and directly to the sort of inner balance perfection that will end your battle with infertility forever and help you become a proud mother of your healthy children.


Click to order/for more info on this helpful program:
Pregnancy Miracle

Garden Acupuncture, the premiere fertility clinic in Park Slope, Brooklyn is helping women get pregnant, stay pregnant and give birth to healthy babies.

Carrie had a history of infertility despite her active, healthy lifestyle. After several miscarriages and a D+C, her cycle became very irregular. She then decided to seek out professional treatment.

She came to Garden Acupuncture to enhance her fertility and to ensure a full term pregnancy. After several months of acupuncture and Chinese herbal therapy, Carrie had a normal menstrual cycle and was ready to conceive. Her pregnancy has been completely normal and she is due late December.

Acupuncture has been increasing fertility for centuries and now a recent study shows how. Researchers from The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong University of TCM, uncovered the biochemical mechanism that does just this. Acupuncture increases blood levels of HLA-G (human leukocyte antigen).

Presence of the HLA-G protein is predictive of higher pregnancy and live birth rates according to modern research conducted at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

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Learn more about Garden Acupuncture by watching the video.
Garden Acupuncture is located in Park Slope Brooklyn, next to the Food Co-Op
790A Union St (between 6/7th Ave)
GardenAcu.com
Phone: 646.234.3643

Photo credit: GardenAcu.com
All rights reserved

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
Midlife Motherhood: A Woman-to-Woman Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting
by Jann Blackstone-Ford

-- What's a woman to do when she's facing menopause, toddlers, and elder care all at the same time?

Women who have been there and done that provide some insight in Midlife Motherhood.

Offering humor, warmth, and frankness, this is a hand-holding guide for the uninitiated.
What's on their minds:
• Common fears and concerns: from Down's syndrome to being too old
• Fertility challenges and what to physically expect from pregnancy
• How to juggle postpartum demands-parenting, working, caring for aging parents . . . and all at once!
• Hot flashes and warm bottles: coping with hormonal changes while caring for a new baby

Paperback: 288 pages
Click to order/for more info: Midlife Motherhood

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With the help of Longevity Herbs' supplements and dietary changes, patients with low Anti-mullerian hormone may still be able to achieve pregnancy

In today’s world, many couples are delaying pregnancy well into their late 30’s. The problem is that women over the age of 35 find it more challenging to get pregnant. Usually after 6-12 months of unsuccessful attempts, pregnancy patients will start seeking fertility care.

“Ovarian Reserve” is a medical term used to describe how good a woman’s eggs are. Fertility patients undergo tests to find out more about this reserve. One of these tests is called the “Anti-mullarian hormone” (AMH) test which measures how strong the reserve is. If the number is low, patients are considered to be infertile.

Sadly, many patients with very low AMH counts are told they will never get pregnant. They are encouraged to use egg donors right off the bat.

The good news is that these struggling couples may not be as fruitless as they seem. Experts suggest that they may find help in alternative techniques.

Peyman Saadat, M.D., Medical Director of the Reproductive Fertility Center (RFC) in Beverly Hills, shares about the benefits of dietary changes, acupuncture, and supplements.

“We have had success in pregnancies with patients who have had undetectable AMH on two different occasions,” says Sadaat. Using a more integrative medicine approach, these successes have occurred as recently as last month.

Longevity Herbs founder and licensed acupuncturist, Bryan R Abel, has been a long time practitioner of alternative medicine. He treats fertility patients at his Pacific Palisades office and offers unique, potent supplements to aid with the pregnancy process. Some of his most popular blends are the Iron Complex Complete, CoQ10, and Adaptogen Blend. With the help of this holistic approach, many of his clients achieve the pregnancy they never thought was possible.

--

For more information on Longevity Herbs and products to support healthy pregnancy, visit http://www.LongevityHerbs.com or phone (888) 245-0718.

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
Baby Next Time
by Nicole Klieff

-- Based on a true-life account of a woman's discovery of infertility at the age of 35.

This is a compelling roller-coaster insight to the world of IVF exposing treatments and emotions over a nine year span.

Written with humor on such a dark and taboo subject of pregnancy loss and infertility this honest account is directed to the many across the world in a similar predicament.

The book is written in the hope that people will pursue to seek out the reasons for the most common complaint of "unexplained infertility".

Paperback: 140 pages
Click to order/for more info: Baby Next Time

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“In school, I wasn’t the one saying ‘I want to be a teacher or a doctor,’ ” Dana Murphy says, tickling her eight-month-old daughter.  

“I wanted to be a mom. It was always the most important thing to me.”

Murphy’s motherhood dreams have been realized, despite the odds, and she firmly believes Chinese medicine deserves the credit.

The 35-year-old was diagnosed in her teens with polycystic ovary syndrome, a common endocrine disorder among women which can cause infertility and a host of other unfortunate symptoms, among them obesity, facial hair, thinning hair and acne.

Murphy knew PCOS would make it difficult, maybe even impossible, for her to have children.

She and her husband, Chris, were up for the fertility challenges when they decided to become parents in 2008.

Little did they know how frustrated they would get with conventional medicine, how desperate they would become.

Read more

Photo credit: Shaughn Butts
All rights reserved

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
The Fertility Guide: A Couples Handbook for When You Want to Have a Baby (More Than Anything Else)
by John C., II Jarrett and Deidra T. Rausch

-- This Fertility Guide provides a concise, sensible, appropriately scientific, but yet easily understood approach to modern fertility diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Jarrett and Dr. Rausch have translated their vast and highly successful clinical experience into a "must" for the couple who want to have a baby more than anything else.

The most important contribution of this book is that it translates the high tech into common sense and fills an important void in the specialty... -- E.P. Peterson, MD, Past President of American Society of Reproductive Medicine, Clinical Professor Dept OB/GYN University of Michigan.

Paperback: 200 pages
Click to order/for more info: The Fertility Guide

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Traditional Chinese medicine makes fertility treatments far more effective, Tel Aviv University researchers discover

Traditional Chinese medicine has long been used to ease pain, treat disease, boost fertility, and prevent miscarriage. Known in the Western medical community by its acronym TCM, these traditional remedies include herbal preparations and acupuncture. Now Tel Aviv University researchers have discovered that a combination of TCM therapy and intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a winning solution for hopeful mommies who are having trouble conceiving.

In the first study that measures the effectiveness of both herbs and acupuncture in combination with IUI in-fertility treatment, Dr. Shahar Lev-Ari and Keren Sela of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Tel Aviv Medical Center say that the results, which have been published in the Journal of Integrative Medicine, show a significant increase in fertility when the therapies are administered side-by-side.

When combining IUI with TCM treatments, 65.5 percent of the test group were able to conceive, compared with 39.4 percent of the control group, who received no herbal or acupuncture therapy. The method is as "close to nature" as possible and can be used by women employing sperm donors, or after a partner's sperm is centrifuged to enhance its motility in the uterus.

Age-old therapies, contemporary medicine

Dr. Lev-Ari, a cellular biologist and head of the integrative medicine unit, works with both medical doctors and TCM practitioners at Tel Aviv Medical Center's Fertility Research Institute. He and Sela, a TCM practitioner specializing in women's health, have long been interested in how Chinese herbal and acupuncture therapies could work to boost Western-style fertility treatments, contributing to an increase in conception and take-home baby rates.

In a retrospective study, Dr. Lev-Ari and Sela followed the progress of 29 women between the ages of 30 and 45 who were receiving IUI treatment combined with TCM therapy, and compared their results to a control group of 94 women between the ages of 28 and 46 who were undergoing IUI treatment alone. In addition to their IUI treatments, the 29 women in the first group received weekly sessions of acupuncture and a regime of Chinese medicinals, which consisted of powdered or raw Chinese herbs such as PeoniaAlbae and Chuanxiong, designed to meet each woman's specific needs. All herbal preparations were approved by the Israeli Health Ministry.

In terms of both conception and take-home baby rates, the test group fared far better than the control group. Out of the 29 women in the test group, 65.5 percent conceived, and 41.4 percent delivered healthy babies. In the control group, only 39.4 percent conceived and 26.9 percent delivered. The vast difference in success rates is even more surprising when the age of the average participant was taken into account, Dr. Lev-Ari and Sela note. "The average age of the women in the study group was 39.4, while that of the control group was 37.1. Normally, the older the mother, the lower the pregnancy and delivery rates," they explain.

Promoting balance and harmony in the womb

According to the researchers, TCM is aimed at correcting imbalances in the body's natural energy flow, promoting an overall sense of well-being. There are several theories as to why Chinese medicine can be beneficial to fertility rates, including the possibility that herbal remedies and acupuncture can affect the ovulation and menstrual cycle, enhance blood flow to the uterus, and enhance endorphin production and secretion to inhibit the central nervous system and induce calm — all of which can contribute to successful conception.

Now that the researchers have established that TCM can have a major impact on the success of fertility treatments, they plan to design randomized clinical trials, including placebos, to further validate their initial findings.

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Stock Photo credit: yenhoon
All rights reserved

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Natural Remedies for Pregnant Women - Pregnant and not feeling so well? Check out these helpful natural remedies.

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
Budgeting for In-fertility: How to Bring Home a Baby Without Breaking the Bank
-- Having a baby can be one of the most wonderful times of your life -- but if you need help to conceive, it can swiftly become a staggeringly expensive undertaking. 

With the average cost of in-fertility treatments ranging from $35,000 to $85,000 in the United States (most of which is not covered by insurance companies), many women and couples find themselves having to make difficult choices about building their families.

Getting a grip on your finances is one of the few things you can do to regain control of this process.

In-fertility experts Evelina Weidman Sterling and Angie Best-Boss have created the ultimate guide to ensuring the most cost-effective care with the highest chances for success. 

With anecdotes, interviews, and advice from both doctors and patients, you can easily apply these specific money-saving strategies to your own unique situation.

Click to read more

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After two and half years of trying to get pregnant, Melani Waterman and her husband Brett had twins — Lukas and Charlotte — on Oct. 6.

But becoming a new mom wasn’t easy for the 40-year-old pediatric nurse from Ladner.

Waterman believes it wouldn’t have been possible without the Acubalance Wellness Clinic, which used acupuncture and other alternative treatments to help solve the couple’s infertility, the result of age, stress and low sperm count.

Read more

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TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:

Acupuncture and IVF: Increase IVF Success by 40-60%
by Lifang Liang

-- The information in this book can increase your success rate with in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technologies (ART) by as much as 60%.

Research has shown that acupuncture alone can increase the success rate of IVF by 35%. By also adding Chinese herbal medicine, it is Dr. Lifang Liangs experience that you can almost double that increase.

In this book, Dr. Liang describes her extremely successful step-by-step protocols for combining acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine with IVF.

Whether you are a Western MD specializing in infertility, a Chinese medical practitioner, or a couple experiencing difficulties in conceiving, this book is sure to give you new hope and a new approach to dealing with this all too common and difficult condition.

Paperback: 224 pages
Click to order/for more info: Acupuncture and IVF

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Have you tried Traditional Chinese remedies or acupuncture? Do you think it helped?

Traditional Chinese remedies may boost fertility treatments

Combination of Traditional Chinese Medicine (known as TCM in West) and intrauterine insemination (IUI) enhances effectiveness of fertility treatments, a new study has revealed.

Chinese traditional remedies, which have long been used to ease pain, treat disease, boost fertility, and prevent miscarriage, include herbal preparations and acupuncture.

In the first study that measures the effectiveness of both herbs and acupuncture in combination with IUI infertility treatment...

Read the rest of the article

Photo credit: yenhoon
All rights reserved

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