Natural Fertility & IVF Support

Acubalance Wellness Centre is the first Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic in Western Canada entirely dedicated to treating infertility and men's and women's reproductive health. Our highly qualified practitioners have provided hundreds of couples with natural ways to increase fertility and ultimately achieve their dream of conceiving and having a healthy baby. For those requiring Assisted Reproductive Therapy, we work closely with a number of local reproductive specialists to provide support for treatments like In Vitro Fertilization.

Natural Fertility

Chinese medicine offers you natural ways to increase fertility during the critical four to six months before conception. Our preconception program uses a blend of diet therapy, lifestyle counseling, mind-body techniques, herbal formulas and acupuncture to balance your hormones, improve your fertility, and boost your overall health and well being.

The preconception program is an option for women who simply want to boost their fertility naturally, for women that have been unsuccessful with IVF and want to try a natural alternative, or for women who want to ensure their body is in the best condition to conceive before trying IVF again.

If your fallopian tubes are intact and your partner's sperm is healthy then you might want to start with the preconception program and only use IVF if necessary.

One of our highly trained practitioners will do an in-depth evaluation of you and your partner’s condition and create a personalized treatment plan based on your individual diagnosis.

We also strongly encourage the male partner to come for treatment as in over 40% of infertility cases there is male factor infertility. Acupuncture, Chinese medicine, diet and exercise can help. In all cases we focus on treating the whole patient, and the root cause of your disorder. As a result you will not only experience an improvement in your specific condition but better over all health and sense of wellbeing.

IVF & Acupuncture

Acubalance Wellness Centre offers laser acupuncture before and after transfer on site at Genesis Fertility Centre and in the Acubalance Clinic. Currently Acubalance is the only acupuncture clinic in Western Canada to use the laser and evidence-based acupuncture protocols that, in a recent study,were shown to improve embryo implantation rates by up to 15%.

Acupuncture on the day of embryo transfer

Acubalance IVF acupuncture treatments are based on the latest research. The most recent study shows that using laser acupuncture before and after transfer as well as needle acupuncture, in specific points, significantly increases the rate of implantation and pregnancy rates.(You can find the references to this and other studies here).

Treatment: Two treatments on transfer day.

Before embryo transfer: Your first treatment is a laser acupuncture treatment before transfer (20-30 minutes).

After embryo transfer: Your second treatment is after transfer and uses both needle acupuncture and laser acupuncture (20-30 minutes).

* IVF (before and after) transfer treatments can be performed at Acubalance Vancouver and on site at IVF clinics (if Acubalance practitioner available) in the lower mainland.  Please call to find out if our Acubalance practitioner can provide treatment for you onsite at your IVF clinic.*

Laser Acupuncture Study May 2009

A recent large prospectus study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility demonstrated through a randomized, placebo-controlled, multiarm trial of in vitro fertilization at the Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut (RMACT) that laser acupuncture before and after embryo transfer improved implantation rates up to 15%.

This study, by Dr. Fratterelli and his colleagues, is the largest randomized, controlled trial evaluating acupuncture in the setting of IVF, as well as the first ever to evaluate laser acupuncture as an adjunctive therapy in IVF.

1,000 women underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF) in an experiment, each one randomized to receive either laser acupuncture from a low-power laser, traditional needle acupuncture, laser sham acupuncture, relaxation therapy, or no treatment; the rate of implantation was significantly higher in the laser acupuncture group than in the other groups.

Compared with the sham group, the implantation rate in the laser acupuncture group was significantly better, odds ratio 1.26, and the clinical pregnancy rate also was higher, 55% vs. 44%.

All interventions occurred 25 minutes before the embryo transfer and then shortly after the transfer as well. Women in the relaxation group listened to soft music in a quiet setting. Those in the two acupuncture and the sham groups received treatment at five acupoints before the embryo transfer and at four acupoints after the transfer.

Dr. Fratterelli concluded "laser acupuncture performed on the day of embryo transfer was well tolerated and significantly improved implantation rates in our patient population. We feel that laser acupuncture could also be used to improve outcomes during IVF."