There are some people who believe that it is a good idea to use acupuncture in conjunction with in vitro fertilization to increase the likelihood that the fertility treatment will be successful. A recent study indicates that there is a good chance that adding acupuncture to your IVF treatments has no effect on improving success rates. However there is probably no harm in using acupuncture either so there's not necessarily a reason not to try it "just in case".
Basically there were a series of studies done that used IVF alone, IVF with acupuncture and IVF with placebo acupuncture to try to determine whether the IVF was more successful when acupuncture was used. These studes were inconclusive but basically indicated that there is no reason to believe at this time that IVF is improved by acupuncture. This means that doctors shouldn't recommend acupuncture as a way to improve IVF results. However, it doesn't mean that you can't try using acupuncture to improve fertility.
Question of the Day: Is there anything good or bad about using acupuncture with IVF?
