albahealth.co.uk Women's Health

When treating women with acupuncture, wellbeing is assessed in close association with the menstrual cycle and hormonal changes that may be occurring. The ideal menstrual flow should in fact be painless, regular and not too heavy or too light. Hormonal changes around menopause should be gradual and a smooth, natural process. Quite often women feel, stressed or overwhelmed when their natural cycles become unbalanced, others may experience fertility problems or battle with mood changes.

Acupuncture can offer women enormous benefits. It can bring about real change with the cycle as well as help relieve emotional stresses and hormonal fluctuations, that can so easily be compounded by our modern lifestyles.

Infertility
Acupuncture is gaining extensive media attention for its role in improving the chances of conception, be it naturally or in conjunction with IVF. Preconception treatments ideally need to be considered for a period of three to six months to build health and help create the optimum environment for conception to take place. However, there is research that shows that just two acupuncture treatments before and after an IVF embryo transfer can increase the chances of becoming pregnant by 62%.

What we can hope to achieve through treatment:

•Improve quality of egg cells
•Improve embryo quality
•Improve blood flow to the uterus and quality of the endometrium
•Regulation of hormones
•Help reduce stress levels for couples
•Strengthen the immune system
•Reduce the chance of miscarriage

In cases where natural conception cannot be achieved and fertility treatment is needed, support and treatment for optimum health during the entire process is available. Acupuncture is now commonly used to support the process of IVF to improve success rates.

According to The British Medical Journal, (Feb '08) using Chinese Acupuncture in conjunction with IVF:

- increases the odds of pregnancy by 65%
- increases the odds of ongoing pregnancy by 87% (according to ultrasound evidence of pregnancy at 12 weeks)
- increases the odds of a live birth by 91% compared with IVF on its own