Acupuncture and IVF

I'm going for my third acupuncture treatment with Dr. Needles tonight as part of my preparation for my IVF cycle which starts in September.

Here's a report on a medical study in the British Medical Journal from Feb 2008 titled, "The Effects of acupuncture on rates of pregnancy and live birth among women undergoing invitro fertilisation."

Quotes:

• "Conclusions: Current preliminary evidence suggests that acupuncture given with embryo transfer improves rates of pregnancy and live birth among women undergoing in vitro fertilisation. "


• "What is already known on this topic:
  - In vitro fertilisation is lengthy, expensive, and stressful (duh!!)
  - Safe, low cost, adjuvant treatments to improve success rates would benefit patients and reduce costs (you bet!!)


• "What this study adds:
  - Current evidence from methodologically sound trials showed an odds ratio of more than 1.6 for clinical pregnancy after in vitro fertilisation with adjuvant acupuncture
  - On average, 10 women would need to be treated with acupuncture to bring about one additional clinical pregnancy
  - The magnitude of this effect depended on the baseline pregnancy rate"

Based on this study, and others, my acupuncture clinic claims: "Those who received acupuncture increased their chances of conceiving by 65%."

Do any of you out there in the interweb have acupuncture success/failure stories to tell?

Jem

Update on 9/1/2009:

Here are further articles given to me by other acupucturists:

• Reduction of blood flow impedance in the uterine arteries of infertile women iwth electro-acupuncture - Human Reproduction vol 11 no.6 pp. 1314-1317, 1996
• Quantitive evaluation of spermatozoa ultrastructure after acupuncture treatment for idiopathic male infertility, Fertility and Sterility Vol. 84, No. 1, July 2005, p.141-147