Love is in the air!

Yesterday I received the very happy news that not one but two of my fertility patients were pregnant!

Following my last blog I have seen an increase within my clinics of new patients seeking help with fertility problems.

A lot of women suffering with low fertility or problems conceiving often turn to acupuncture once they are already undergoing IVF or IUI procedures. Whilst acupuncture can be very beneficial in enhancing their fertility treatments, I find myself wishing the patient had come to me sooner before they embarked on the drugs, injections, scans and poking and prodding that goes with IVF procedures.

Chinese acupuncture is able to get a woman's body in the optimum state to conceive without the use of artificial enhancers and stimulants. An acupuncturist would be able to detect the quality of a woman's blood through taking the pulses and observing the tongue and this would inform them as to whether the blood was deficient or stagnant. Once this information is collected it becomes fairly simple to treat. In Western medicine a patient might be prescribed iron tablets if they were anaemic but the Chinese medical slant takes it one step further - even if your blood were a little on the lacking iron side we would work to give it that boost. If your blood isn't rich in nutrients it certainly has none to spare on nourishing a baby. And it can be just as simple as that!

There are of course numerous other reasons within Chinese medicine that a person might be struggling to conceive but your acupuncturist should be able to diagnose this and work with you towards improving your health, either through diet, exercise or by targeting stressful factors.

Of course, IVF has provided a lot of otherwise poorly fertile women with healthy, bouncing babies and has been a huge advancement in modern medicine. Studies are now being conducted into the efficacy of acupuncture combined with IVF procedures and the results are very pleasing. My patients find that the process of IVF can be a very overwhelming and anxious time and so not only will acupuncture help with the side-effects of the medication, helping to stimulate follicle growth and to help prevent the body from rejecting the embryo transfer itself, it will also help keep the person's mind calm and relieve stress and anxiety.

Here's to July where I hope to hear even more good pregnancy news!