Acupuncture for Fertility Support

How Chinese medicine understands fertility

In Chinese medicine, the menstrual cycle is the main window into reproductive health. Before anything else, I want to know how your cycle behaves. How many days apart are your periods, and does that number jump around? How many days do you bleed? What is the flow like: heavy, scanty, stopping and starting, clotted, brown at the start or end? Do you get cramps, breast tenderness, breakouts or mood changes before your period?

A cycle that runs a similar number of days each month, with three to five days of steady bleeding, fresh red colour, no clots and little PMS, is what Chinese medicine treats as a settled cycle. Normal varies from person to person, but a cycle that swings from 20 days to 35 days, or comes with heavy clotting and pain, is telling us something.

The patterns that come up most often in Chinese medicine theory are:

• Kidney deficiency. The Kidneys are seen as the root of reproduction. A deficient pattern can show up as a long or irregular cycle, low back ache, tiredness and feeling cold.
• Blood deficiency. Light, short or pale periods, dizziness, dry skin and poor sleep.
• Liver Qi stagnation. Strong PMS, irritability, breast tenderness, and a cycle that shifts with stress.
• Blood stasis. Painful periods with dark clots, often a stabbing pain.
• Phlegm-Damp. Often linked with a heavier build, sluggish digestion and long cycles.

Most people have a mix. The pattern decides the treatment, which is why two people trying to conceive can get quite different plans.

What treatment involves

Your first visit at the Keswick clinic is a full intake: your cycle history, any charts or tracking app data you have, your medical diagnosis and test results if you have them, and what your fertility doctor has planned. Then I look at your tongue and take your pulse and give you a Chinese medicine diagnosis.

Acupuncture is used to support the cycle, ease period pain and PMS, and help with the stress and poor sleep that often come with trying to conceive. Chinese herbal medicine is a formula written for your pattern and adjusted as your cycle changes. Because this is an internal, hormonal area, Chinese medicine often combines herbs with acupuncture rather than using acupuncture alone. Formulas can be prepared as granules you mix with water or as tinctures, so there is nothing to boil at home.

For acupuncture, plan on 5–10 treatments to judge progress. Changes in the cycle are judged over several cycles, not a few weeks.

If you are doing IUI or IVF, treatment can be timed around your clinic’s schedule, and your clinic should know you are having acupuncture or taking herbs. Acupuncture here is support alongside your clinic’s care, not a way to raise your IVF success rate.

Between visits

• Track your cycle: start date, length, flow, clots, pain and any spotting. It is the single most useful thing you can bring.
• Take a prenatal vitamin with folic acid if you are trying to conceive, as your doctor or pharmacist advises.
• Keep a regular sleep schedule and a steady routine of moderate exercise. Very intense training can disrupt the cycle.
• Cut back on alcohol and stop smoking. Both partners count here.
• Tell every practitioner about every medication, supplement and herb you take.

When to see your doctor first

See your family doctor or a fertility specialist, and do not wait on Chinese medicine, if:

• You are under 35 and have not conceived after a year of regular unprotected sex, or you are over 35 and it has been six months.
• Your periods are irregular or absent, or you have a known condition that affects fertility, such as PCOS, endometriosis or past pelvic infection. These are reasons to be assessed sooner, not later.
• You have very heavy bleeding, severe pelvic pain, or bleeding between periods or after sex.
• You have had repeated miscarriages.
• You have a positive pregnancy test with one-sided pain, shoulder-tip pain, dizziness or bleeding. Go to emergency.

Fertility involves both partners. A semen analysis is a standard part of the medical workup and is worth doing early.