More turning to acupuncture for fertility treatment
Thursday, August 23, 2007
With more women postponing marriage, a growing number of couples are relying on fertility treatments to help them conceive. Many are also turning to more alternative methods to increase the odds of becoming pregnant.
Click here for larger video According to the Texas Center for Reproductive Acupuncture, one in six couples suffers from some sort of fertility problem, but the group says it's helping a growing number of women -- not only to become pregnant -- but to successfully deliver healthy babies.
Christy Martin, 36, and her husband spent more than two years trying to get pregnant. She said medical fertility treatments didn't work.
“We were at the maximum amount of dosage of shots and they told us, 'you're done. You're not even stimulating your eggs anymore....'’ said Martin.
After a hitting a heartbreaking hurdle, Martin kept trying.
“I just wasn't ready to accept defeat yet,’ said Martin. So she turned to reproductive acupuncturist, Kirsten Karchmer. Five months later, she was pregnant.
“I cried a whole lot that day,’ said Martin.
“If we work on the assumption that your body communicates with electricity, that neurons travel along nerves via electricity, when you put a needle in your body, which is metal, it disrupts that movement,’ said Karchmer. She believes reproductive acupuncture, including Chinese herbal medicine, nutritional counseling, and stress management, can significantly improve a woman's chances of becoming pregnant.
“Within the realm of infertility, there's so many different problems -- there's poor ovarian reserve, there's…no menstrual cycle, there's extremely painful menstrual cycles, there are endometriosis, there are lot of different diagnosis, so for each of those different diagnosis, we try to understand why does that patient present with those symptoms, then correct those symptoms,’ said Karchmer.
Karchmer says about 92 percent of her patients become pregnant during a 12 month span, about 40 percent of them use medical fertility treatments in conjunction with acupuncture.
“To be able to make your own was pretty cool,’ said Martin. She´s expecting a baby girl in October.
While many doctors support reproductive acupuncture in conjunction with fertility drugs, some discourage the use of herbal medicines.
Reproductive acupuncture costs about $80 per session.
Fulfilling the Essence: DESCRIPTION: This book is another in Bob Flaws' series on gynecology. It is the most complete discussion of Chinese medicine on this subject available in English. It includes the TCM treatment for various Western diseases associated with infertility, including female immunologic infertility, fallopian tube blockage, endocrine imbalances, polycystic ovarian syndrome, uterine myoma, luteal phase defect, anovulation, and endometriosis.
Eighty percent of couples having regular sex without contraception will conceive within one year with another 10% conceiving after that. This suggests that around 10% of the population suffers from infertility. Of this number, 40% is due to female problems, 40% to male problems, and 10% to a combination of both acting synergistically. Peak fertility seems to occur between 21-25 years of age in both males and females after which it gradually declines. After 25 years of age, there is a 75% chance of pregnancy within 6 months. Approaching 30, this decreases to only a 47% chance. Approaching 40, this further decreases to only a 25% chance, and after 40 to a 22% chance. Another way of stating these statistics is that a woman's risk of infertility is 2 times greater in women between 35 and 44 than in women between 30 and 34. It also seems that the risk of infertility is 1½ times higher for African Americans than for whites.