Fertility Treatments in Chinese Medicine – Case Study:
Ayelet gave birth to her eldest son at the age of 30, and at the age of 43 she decided that she wanted to conceive once again and began attempts naturally, but without much success. The disappointment was accompanied by repeated miscarriages, and then she turned to IVF therapy. After having suffered many disappointments there too she decided in her great desperation to seek fertility treatment through acupuncture.
For three months she received Chinese medicine treatments, where the diagnosis was that her FSH levels were not balanced – which made it difficult to fertilize the egg with normal sperm. After three months of balancing her cycles with acupuncture treatment, Ayelet became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter about a year later – with natural implantation – a natural and quick conception into pregnancy. The support continued even when she was pregnant to prevent an miscarriage and calming of the fetus. Ayelet gave birth to her daughter following a successful pregnancy and natural and happy child birth.
How Chinese Medicine treats and helps infertility:
Chinese medicine can be a complementary therapy for IVF and all other fertility treatments in Western medicine, but can certainly be used as a full stand alone fertility treatment by itself. In Chinese medicine we will use acupuncture, nutrition, supplements, moxa and herbs – all of these are in accordance with the specific diagnosis of the woman’s situation and needs.
Treatment is done in several stages:
- Stage one: regulating the menstrual cycle: before approaching a woman’s fertility problem, if the source of the problem is in the woman, it is important to regulate her period. An irregular cycle means unbalanced hormones. The desired time span of a balanced cycle is between 28 and 35 days. Balancing the cycle takes up to three months.
- Stage two: support and strengthen the ovaries and ovarian reserve (in cases of high FSH levels and age of 40 and above): with acupuncture accompanied by herbal medicine and nutrition it is possible within three months to balance very high levels of FSH, help the woman’s body strengthen her egg stores, and greatly improve their quality. This stage will be done in the clinic while balancing the woman’s menstrual cycle, and will accompany full hormonal balance. After the FSH levels has decreased and were balanced, it will be possible to begin with the third stage – preparing the uterus for fetal implantation.
- Stage three: preparing the uterus to receive the fetus – the implantation process: from the moment that the menstrual cycle and hormones are balanced, the uterus can be prepared for the fetus’s implantation, and strengthening of the implantation process. This stage is individual and accordingly the treatment, which includes acupuncture, herbs and nutrition guidelines, which varies from patient to patient. At the end of the process, sperm entering the womb will be received well. There are women, for example, who suffer from polycystic ovaries, which prevent the embryo from implanting. Others suffer from cold, and so heating the uterus would solve the problem, and will greatly help the implantation process. Time evaluation of the overall treatment of all stages (if the treatment using Chinese medicine only) is about a year.
- Complementary therapy for IVF: Chinese medicine is also an excellent supplementary treatment for IVF, and Western medicine in general. It has been shown that acupuncture increases the success rate of fertility by 45%. Many of my patients, who had long tried to conceive through fertility without success, succeeded in getting pregnant quickly.
- Treatment of male fertility: If the fertility problems arise from men, the treatment works in cycles of six weeks (about 40 days) – the period of semen production. In order to achieve results, the patient must be treated along several sperm production cycles. This stage takes a minimum of three months, during which the man is treated and afterwards try to get pregnant again. If needed, other problems must be addressed also such as sperm count, when the solution is to raise the level of hormones, by treating the kidney energy.
- Prevention of miscarriage and bed rest: even after the woman becomes pregnant, there is still a 45% chance that the fetus miscarry. In order to prevent miscarriage the women and her uterus should be strengthened for three months, through acupuncture and Chinese herbal formulas designed to safe keep the fetus. The treatments strengthen the level of Qi in the body, acupuncture and herbs increase the level of hormones in the body and strengthen kidney energy – which together relax the fetus and strengthen it in the womb.
Chinese medicine has many years of experience in pregnancy, fertility, infertility and childbirth. So far, it has been shown that with the support of Chinese medicine treatments, the chances of becoming pregnant and maintaining it are proven to increase significantly and leed to more relaxed and natural pregnancies.
