Chinese herbal medicine increases IUI success rates in women

In the first study that measures the effectiveness of both herbs and acupuncture in combination with IUI infertility treatment, Dr. Shahar Lev-Ari and Keren Sela of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Tel Aviv Medical Center say that the results, which have been published in the European Journal of Integrative Medicine, show a significant increase in fertility when the therapies are administered side-by-side.

In terms of both conception and take-home baby rates, the test group fared far better than the control group.

Out of the 29 women in the test group, 65.5 percent conceived, and 41.4 percent delivered healthy babies. In the control group, only 39.4 percent conceived and 26.9 percent delivered.

The vast difference in success rates is even more surprising when the age of the average participant was taken into account, Dr. Lev-Ari and Sela note. "The average age of the women in the study group was 39.4, while that of the control group was 37.1. Normally, the older the mother, the lower the pregnancy and delivery rates," they explain.

Reference

Sela et al. (2011) Acupuncture and Chinese herbal treatment for women undergoing intrauterine insemination. European Journal of Integrative Medicine, Volume 3, Issue 2, e77–e81.