Does Acupuncture help with infertility treatments?

Acupuncture may help fertility, but it is not supported by high-quality scientific evidence. One study performed in Seattle had lower pregnancy rates in the acupuncture group doing IVF compared to the no acupuncture group . It’s very hard to conduct properly-controlled trials: for a drug we might compare the pregnancy rate for women taking the drug compared with women taking a sugar pill or placebo or another drug. For acupuncture it’s hard to define a placebo (fake treatment) group – either putting the needles in the ‘wrong places’ or using needles that retract – you still get acupressure not acupuncture. We are OK with couples who wish to use acupuncture but we do not recommend Chinese herbal treatments as these may have hormonal effects or interact with fertility medications.