Nicola Scholes

Harmony with Traditional Chinese Medicine...

Fertility & Pregnancy

Before babies and beyond.....

Traditional Acupuncturists can support women and men with fertility problems and women in pregnancy.

Since becoming an Acupuncturist Nicola has attended further courses and lectures by Trevor Wing, Debra Betts, Zita West, Jane Lyttleton, Jani White and others to deepen her knowledge and help couples needing support with fertility issues. Her latest course with Trevor Wing in London expanded her knowledge using an integrated approach examining biomedical and TCM evidence based medicine. Nicola is an Associate member of the Women’s Natural Health Practice. The work Nicola does with fertility and pregnancy has been a natural progression from her midwifery experience.

Acupuncture can help prepare the body for a healthy pregnancy when either trying to achieve one naturally or with assisted reproductive techniques such as IVF, ICSI and IUI. Most women will benefit from treatment for a few months beforehand to optimise their fertile health but research is suggesting that Acupuncture also helps during the IVF process. However Acupuncture can help obtain results without medical help in some circumstances.

Traditional Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine can also help with menstrual problems, hormonal imbalances, pregnancy disorders and childbirth.

How acupuncture can help with fertility problems

Randomised trials in China have demonstrated significantly better pregnancy rates for acupuncture than medication (Yang 2005, Chen 2007, Song 2008), but these studies arguably are not of high quality. In the West, clinical trials on acupuncture for natural fertility are almost non-existent, though a small amount of positive evidence exists (Gerhard 1992, Stener-Victorin 2000, 2008, 2010).

Research suggests that the plausible mechanisms explaining how acupuncture may benefit fertility are by:

regulating fertility hormones (Ng 2008, Huang 2008, Lim 2010, Stener-Victorin 2010, He 2009)
increasing blood flow to the reproductive organs. Acupuncture inhibits sympathetic activity, improving blood flow to the ovaries and enhancing the environment in which ovarian follicles develop (Stener-Victorin 2006, Lim 2010).
increasing blood flow to the uterus improving the thickness of the endometrial lining and increasing the chances of embryo implantation. (Stener-Victorin 1996, Huang 2008),
counteracting the effects of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) – (Stener-Victorin 2000, 2008, 2009, Zhang 2009).

Useful Links

E: info@nicolascholesacupuncture.co.uk