Acupuncture to improve live birth rates for women undergoing IVF study


What is the acupuncture to improve live birth rates for women undergoing IVF study about?

Research has suggested that acupuncture might help increase pregnancy and live birth rates in women undergoing embyro transfer.  However, there are still many questions to be answered, and there remains a need for a larger well designed study to see whether acupuncture really does help with increasing pregnancy and live birth rates. 

This study is a randomised controlled trial involving being allocated  into one of the treatment groups and the completion of some questionnaires relating to your general wellbeing, views on acupuncture, how you felt about the treatments you received, and your use of health care services and products.  We also need to collect some information on the outcome of your embryo transfer. 

The aim of the study is to determine the effectiveness of acupuncture on live birth rates for women undergoing IVF.

This is an important study because acupuncture is unlikely to be offered to women until we have a better understanding of the advantages or any problems associated with giving acupuncture for embyro transfer.  

Who can take part?

Women who wish to take part need to meet all the following criteria to take part in the study:

  • Women less than 43 years of age undergoing IVF at a study partnered IVF unit
  • Undergoing a fresh IVF or ICSI cycle
Women who wish to take part cannot be:
  • receiving  acupuncture (need to stop acupuncture two weeks before starting your IVF cycle)
  • having a frozen cycle
  • previously been in the study
  • planning pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
  • receiving donor eggs. 

You will also need to confirm you are able to attend a treatment session during the time you are administering stimulating medication before egg retrieval and also for two appointments on the day of embryo transfer (one before and one after). You will be allocated randomly (like the toss of a coin) to either acupuncture or placebo acupuncture. All acupuncture treatment sessions are free.

I'm interested in participating, what do I have to do?

If you are interested in taking part in this study, please contact the researchers for more information. Researchers can be contacted by email, s.fogarty@uws.edu.au or phone 02 4620 3290.

Thank you for your interest.

This study is being conducted by the Centre for Health Research Complementary Medicine Research at the University of Western Sydney, in conjunction with IVF Australia, Fertility Plus, Assisted Conception Australia, Westmead Fertility Centre, Fertility Associates, Melbourne IVF and Flinders University.  Ethics approval has been obtained for this project at all sites.