Acupuncture reduces stress and improves the pregnancy rates in IVF-ICSI treatments

57 infertile patients undergoing IVF or IVF/ICSI. Patients were undergoing Embryo Transfer with or without acupuncture as part of their standard clinical care. Main outcome measure(s): Perceive Stress Scale scores, pregnancy rates.

Women who received this acupuncture regimen achieved pregnancy 64.7%, whereas those without acupuncture achieved pregnancy 42.5%.

When stratified by donor recipient status, only nondonor recipients potentially had an improvement with acupuncture (35.5% without acupuncture vs. 55.6% with acupuncture). Those who received this acupuncture regimen had lower stress scores both pre-ET and post-ET compared to those who did not.

Those with decreased their perceived stress scores compared to baseline had higher pregnancy rates than those who did not demonstrate this decrease, regardless of acupuncture status.

The acupuncture regimen was associated with less stress both before and after embryo transfer, and it possibly improved pregnancy rates.

Reference

Balk, et al. (2010) The relationship between perceived stress, acupuncture, and pregnancy rates among IVF patients: A pilot study. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 16, 154–157.