More women are seeking support and assistance in becoming pregnant and maintaining a healthy pregnancy. Daily stress and advanced age are common factors with infertility. After the age of 40, there is a 50 percent decrease in fertility rates and an increased risk of miscarriage. As a woman ages there is diminished egg quality and quantity, less frequent ovulations, reduced cervical mucus secretions and reduced blood perfusion to the ovaries and uterus.

Acupuncture can greatly increase a women's ability to conceive and carry a pregnancy to term. It improves ovarian and uterine function as well as other fertility markers such as normalization of follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle.

With in vitro fertilization (IVF), the chance of a term pregnancy is about 20 percent per transfer. In the journal Fertility and Sterility, April 2002, a German study showed that pregnancy rates improved in patients who received acupuncture while undergoing assisted reproductive therapies. Those who received acupuncture immediately before and after embryo transfer had a clinical pregnancy rate of 42.5 percent versus 26.3 percent in the control group.

Acupuncture improves the environment within the uterus and therefore provides a more conducive space for the egg to mature. Endometrial lining can also thicken, enhancing the chances of a successful conception and pregnancy.

Stress hormones inhibit the reproductive hormones making it more challenging to conceive. Some studies have pointed out acupuncture's effect of sedating the nervous system allowing a patient to maintain a calmness that the body needs to become pregnant.

Acupuncture can help a patient feel more empowered through the fertility process.

It is the state of health and well being that enables pregnancy to occur most easily. I strive to bring the whole person into overall balance and health.

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Quote from Andrew Weil, MD