Everything Pregnant

 Acupuncture for Fertility

Speaking from personal experience, acupuncture worked wonders for me. In my early thirties when we were trying to get pregnant for our first child, it just didn't happen for the first year. According to the clinical definition: Infertility is "a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse"...(WHO-ICMART glossary1).

As having a few children has basically been my life-long dream since I was a child, I went to an acupuncturist specializes in treating infertility in Hong Kong, as I was living there at that time. Before making an appointment to see her, I had already heard numerous success stories from my friends and family. I went with my then-husband and we received a 7-day acupuncture treatment as well as taking herbal medicines every day during that week. By the end of the treatments, the acupuncturist worked out my fertile dates and told us to "work hard" during those three days. We did exactly what we were told and I fell pregnant for my first child that month.

I was very lucky the treatment worked for me after just one attempt. My cousin and her husband who were in their early forties after trying for over a decade went to see her, she too fell pregnant after receiving treatments for just over three months. I was particularly inspired by her case as her husband is a family doctor and her father-in-law was a gynecologist before he retired. A family with such strong western medical background opted for a natural less invasive fertility treatment was truly inspiring for many eager parents to be.

How does acupuncture for fertility work? 

According to The Guardian's news pages in 2008, "Acupuncture can increase the chances of getting pregnant for women undergoing fertility treatment by 65%." Its history dating back 5,000 years in Chinese medicine. By applying needles to fertility pressure points, acupuncture regulates the flow of energy in the body and brings it back into balance.

Acupuncture treatments help to increase blood flow to the uterus, regulate reproductive hormones, and reduce inflammation to increase the chances of conceiving. After conceiving, further treatments will be required to stabilize the pregnancy. 

Acupuncture involves placing thin needles into the fertility pressure points of the body. You can hardly feel the needles when applying correctly and it's a completely relaxing process.