Many couples who have difficulty conceiving a child by traditional methods often employ various techniques to assist them in the reproductive process. The most common assisted reproduction therapy is in vitro fertilization (IVF), in which a woman's eggs are harvested and fertilized with a man's sperm in a laboratory. Embryos grown from the sperm and eggs are then chose to be transferred into the woman's uterus. In cases where a male's sperm count is extremely low, a different procedure known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) may be used.

Although assisted reproduction techniques like IVF and ICSI have been in use since the 1970s, they are still something of an inexact science. Success rates for each therapy range from as low as 1% to as high as 50%, and a successful pregnancy depends on a variety of factors, including the age of the woman, the cause of infertility, and the skill of the technician performing the procedure.

Two teams of researchers in Germany and the People's Republic of China have found that adding acupuncture to the treatment regimen of women using assisted reproductive techniques to have a child can dramatically improve the woman's chances of getting pregnant. Their findings, published in the April issue of Fertility and Sterility1 and widely reported in the popular press, could bring new hope to thousands of couples who would like to have children but have been unable to do so.

A total of 160 women undergoing either IVF or ICSI were chosen for the study and randomly assigned to a control group or an acupuncture group. The average age of the patient and the cause of infertility were approximately the same for each group; only patients with good quality embryos were included in the study.

After sperm and eggs were acquired, a maximum of three embryos were transferred into each woman's uterus using established transfer procedures, with the same procedure used for every patient in both groups. The examiner who performed the embryo transfers was not told which group each patient belonged to.

Patients in both groups received hormone therapy before and after embryo transfer to increase the odds of a successful pregnancy. Patients in the acupuncture group also received two acupuncture sessions - the first treatment 25 minutes before embryo transfer, the second treatment 25 minutes after.

Six weeks after the embryo transfers were performed, all of the women were given an ultrasound examination. In the control group, the presence of a fetal sac, the scientists' criteria for a clinical pregnancy, was found in 21 women (26.3%). In the acupuncture group, the pregnancy rate was "considerably higher" - 34 women (42.5%) were carrying a fetal sac at the time of examination

"Acupuncture seems to be a useful tool" for patients looking to increase their chances of becoming pregnant following assisted reproduction therapy, the authors concluded. They added, "As we could not observe any significant differences in covariants between the acupuncture and control groups, the results demonstrate that acupuncture improves pregnancy rate."