Acupuncture reduces stress whilst trying to conceive

Acupuncture may be a useful intervention to assist with the reduction of infertility-related stress. At the end of the 8-week intervention, women in the acupuncture group reported significant changes on two domains on the Fertility Problem Inventory with less social concern (mean difference [MD] -3.75, 95% confidence interval [CI] -7.58 to 0.84, p=0.05), and less relationship concern (MD -3.66, 95% CI -6.80 to -0.052, p=0.02).

There were also trends toward a reduction of infertility stress on other domains, and a trend toward improved self-efficacy (MD 11.9, 95% CI -2.20 to 26.0, p=0.09) and less anxiety (MD -2.54, 95% CI -5.95 to 0.86, p=0.08) in the acupuncture group compared with the wait-list control.

Reference

Smith, et al. (2011) The effect of acupuncture on psychosocial outcomes for women experiencing infertility: a pilot randomized controlled trial. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 2011 Oct;17(10): 923-30.