Ethics of herbs used during the luteal phase of women trying to conceive/IVF Acupuncture Research

August 20, 2009

Thanks Ray for providing the detail on the studies. Here are a couple of

additional points:

Westergaard did not include the auricular points that were in Paulus.

Craig added CV6 prior to embryo transfer and KI3 after. And Kristin, you are

absolutely right about the Craig study -- the news there is not the lower rate

of pregnancy for the acupuncture group, but that incredible 69% pregnancy rate

for the non-treatment group. It should have been the study that was heard around

the infertility world, but even at the time, there was no press about what they

were doing. There was a smaller sample size (about 50 in each of the acupuncture

and control group)

Additional studies suggest that given the previous reports about increasing the

pregnancy rate by 10-15%, the effective size of a treatment group would be about

400 subjects (Smith 2006, and none of these studies are really large enough.

Valerie

, kwisgirda wrote:

>

> Hello,

>

> The second study that Ray cites (2007, Craig, et al) looks suspicious to me.

69% pregnancy rate for the control group looks too good to be true.

>

> For most ivf clinics, isn't the average pregnancy rate for the under 35 crowd

45-50%, precipitously dropping as the patients get older?

>

> These studies need to be looked at closely and then taken with a grain of

salt.

>

> Kristin

>

> Kristin Wisgirda

> Lic. Acupuncturist

> Posture Alignment Specialist, Egoscue Certified

> 508-427-6575

>

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