Fertility and Infertility News, November 26 2008

Acupuncture for Infertility

Fertility and Infertility News, November 26 2008

By Natural Fertility⋅

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Does acupuncture help boost fertility? Jennifer Aniston thinks so (and we do too). According to Kiddicare.com:

“Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston has reportedly turned to acupuncture in a bid to improve her chances of conceiving, according to new celebrity rumours.

Acupuncture is said to stimulate the energy pathways of the body using very fine needles and is thought to help boost fertility levels in patients hoping to get pregnant.”
Have a big brother? He could be unknowingly influencing your reproductive patterns. According to an article at thefrisky.com,

“Sheffield University researchers, who poured over birth, marriage, and death records, discovered that anyone, male or female, with an older male sibling is 5% less likely to have children than people with female older siblings. They also have children later in life and space their babies out.”

Considering assisted reproductive technology such as IVF or donor eggs? A new study has found that the use of ART (assisted reproductive technology) increases the risk of certain birth defects such as heart defects, cleft lip and/or palate and gastrointestinal defects. According to CNN.com,
” As part of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study, which gathers information on birth defects from 10 states, Reefhuis and her colleagues compared 281 births using ART with more than 14,000 naturally conceived births. The researchers looked at approximately 18 categories of birth defects, but only those four were found to be “statistically significantly associated with ART.”

The study findings pertain only to single births; the researchers did not find a link between ART and birth defects among multiple births. ART increases the chances of having a multiple birth, and infants born as part of a multiple birth are more likely to have birth defects regardless of the method of conception.”

Sounds like one more reason to boost your fertility naturally before resorting to medical technologies.
On the subject of natural fertility, copulation for many couples used to be fun until infertility set in. Then timing, ovulation, BBT and other tracking becomes the norm and lovemaking becomes a means to and end rather than something to do for pleasures sake. For some tips on how to bring the love back to your lovemaking and still try to conceive at the same time, check out this article at chealth.com. From the article:

“Another common cycle that reproduction-focused couples fall into is going straight for the finale without spending time on foreplay. Remember when your relationship first began, before baby-making was on your mind, and you would spend so much time just exploring each other’s bodies? Well, go back to that.

Include foreplay in your sexual regime in order to avoid letting sex become simply a means to an end. Enjoy the process and enjoy being close to one another by remembering that you used to have sex for pleasure.

In order to keep your sex life thriving, it is important to focus on pleasure. Just because the mission is to get the sperm to the egg doesn’t mean the experience can’t be orgasmic and pleasurable for both members of the partnership.”