Does acupuncture help with fertility treatments?

Acupuncture is a Traditional Chinese Medicine technique that uses thin needles to stimulate specific points on the body to release blocked energy and jumpstart a healing process. In the context of fertility, acupuncture may help improve blood flow to the uterus and reduce stress and anxiety. It may also play a role in regulating certain hormones that play a role in fertility, including beta endorphins and insulin. However, data from randomized experiments are very limited, and scientific results on the effectiveness of acupuncture for fertility treatments are inconclusive.

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What’re the diagnoses behind fertility issues? Part 1/4: Issues with ovulation

Every year, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) publishes statistics on reproductive health, including a small section on patient diagnoses underlying infertility. These diagnoses are based on data from ~260k IVF cycles that were done at 463 fertility clinics in the US (most recently in 2016). Next to “diminished ovarian reserve” (31% of diagnoses), the most common diagnosis women receive has to do with “ovulatory dysfunction”. We at Ovally set out to unpack what that means:

How do I know if I have enough eggs?

We hear this concern frequently from our Ovally customers – and given the cost of each egg freezing or IVF cycle, it’s certainly warranted. While we recommend you talk to your doctor about this question, we wanted to share some data points on the topic that you can use going into your conversations: