Chinese Medicine theory is based on the healthy functioning of the body being governed by the flow of Qi (or energy) through a system of channels (or meridians) under the skin. When this flow of Qi becomes blocked, illness occurs. When acupuncture is performed, fine needles are inserted at various points along the channels and the body’s balance can be restored and the illness is resolved.

We invited Melanie Hackwell of Ancient Roots Fertility Acupuncture to answer your questions and explain why you may want to consider acupuncture as a complementary therapy when starting your fertility journey.

“I only practice acupuncture for Fertility and Women’s Health. I have been practicing this speciality for 10 years and hold a BSc in Acupuncture, as well as receiving clinical training in China, and extensive post-graduate training in Fertility for both female and male. I am currently working on my Advanced Level Diploma in Fertility Acupuncture.”

What will happen at my first session?

“Your practitioner will conduct a detailed case history of the patient using Chinese Medicine theory, in order to gain background into how the illness arose, what patterns are evident, looking at the tongue and take the pulse, and make a diagnosis.

“Based on that diagnosis, they will put a set of acupuncture points together to use to assist with restoring health and balance to the patient. They may also use a herb called moxa to warm a certain area of the patient’s body and will also make various lifestyle and diet suggestions.”

Does Fertility Acupuncture hurt?

“When done correctly it does not hurt but the patient may feel a sensation such as a dull ache.”

Are there any side effects?

“There may occasionally be some bruising in certain areas, or the patient may feel tired after treatment (especially with the first treatment). This does not last long, and the patient normally feels refreshed a day or two days after treatment.”

How many sessions will I need?

“This is a question that is very difficult to answer until a detailed case history is conducted and the practitioner sees how the patient responds. I generally tell patients that I need about three months to clear any underlying issues that I can see.”

When should I start acupuncture for IVF?

“In order to have the best results, I will need to see you regularly for a period of months. I will often have people approach me a week before starting fertility treatment. While I am happy to help and the acupuncture will provide relief from the stress that a patient is under, more time is required to clear the underlying issues that I see so often in clinic and to work on egg quality and/or semen quality.”

What can I expect from Fertility Acupuncture?

“One of the most important aspects to be aware of is that I was once sitting where you are today. I am fully versed with the pain and intense emotions that go along with trying to conceive. A large amount of empathy is given to my patients which I feel is essential in the healing process.

“Like all acupuncturists, I will conduct a detailed case history. However, with Fertility Acupuncture I will also delve into the immune system in great detail along with any previous illnesses one may have experienced.  I will also be looking at lifestyle, and ask for certain tests to be conducted such as thyroid and vaginal microbiome.  By the time you have visited an IVF clinic, you will have already had all of your hormone levels tested so we will be looking at those as well.

“Increasingly, due to various environmental factors, I am seeing more and more men requiring treatment and we will be investigating that side of things also.

“I will give you an honest opinion of how long I feel treatment will be required. I do however ask that you give me time to tackle the underlying issues that I see on a daily basis.

“I am delighted to have a chat with anyone who needs more information or just so we get to know one another. I feel it is so important to build a close relationship to my patients, so they trust in the support and advice that I give them.”

Contact Melanie directly to make an appointment or to find out more. For more information on the individual practitioners and organisations offering support, advice, and information to those undergoing fertility treatment, please visit our Support Hub.

For years, the media has speculated on Jennifer Aniston’s ‘choice’ not to have children and now she has finally shared the truth about her struggles with IVF and trying to conceive.

In an interview published in Allure this month, she spoke candidly about her attempts to get pregnant with IVF during her late 30s and 40s.

“I was trying to get pregnant. It was a challenging road for me, the baby-making road,” she said.

“All the years and years and years of speculation… It was really hard. I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.”

Jennifer also revealed that she wished that someone had advised her to freeze her eggs at an earlier age: “I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me: ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favour.’ You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”

So, why is your age such an important when it comes to egg freezing?

A study carried out by Imperial College London researchers published earlier this year found that women who freeze their eggs at 40 are unlikely to have a successful live birth. This supports the advice from Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority (HFEA) that age is the key factor in egg freezing success.

The Imperial College London study suggested that women should be encouraged to undergo elective oocyte cryopreservation, commonly known as egg freezing, before the age of 36 to mitigate age-related fertility decline.

Egg freezing is becoming more and more popular as a fertility preservation and the results from the UK study suggest women should be encouraged to undergo egg freezing much earlier than the evidence suggests they are currently doing.

Egg freezing FAQs:

1. What is the best age to freeze your eggs?

Fertility begins to decline from the age of 35, this decline becomes more rapid once you reach your mid-30s and so your optimum age to freeze your eggs would be your late 20s and early 30s.

2. What happens during the egg freezing process?

Our fertility nurses are on hand to take you through the whole process. This usually starts with hormonal injections on day two of your cycle for approximately two weeks. We will carry out regular scans to monitor your progress and, when the follicles have reached the right stage of development, we give you a trigger injection to encourage final maturation of the eggs within the follicles.

Egg collection is then scheduled 36-38 hours later. This is a minor surgical procedure lasting between 20 and 30 minutes, carried out under intravenous sedation. The eggs are checked and then frozen and stored for your use in the future.

3. How long can my eggs be stored?

Previously, eggs, sperm or embryos could only be stored for up to ten years except in cases of premature infertility or if undergoing medical treatment which could affect fertility. On 1 July 2022, these rules changed and now the law permits you to store eggs, sperm or embryos for up to 55 years, although you need to renew your consent every ten years.

If you have more questions about egg freezing and our success rates, call +44 (0) 203 263 6025 or email admin@ariafertility.co.uk to arrange a consultation with one of our fertility specialists.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is an ancient medical system that treats imbalances in the body at physical, mental and energetic level. It focused on the root cause of the disease. The treatments have a cumulative effect, which means that each treatment builds on the last one. That is why we always recommend having a series of 6 or 12 consecutive treatments to fully enjoy the long-lasting health benefits of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Eca Brady, an expert physician of Traditional Chinese medicine, has run a successful practice on Harley Street for over 11 years, focusing on IVF support, infertility, pregnancy, birth and post-natal recovery.

In her treatments she will use acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, dietary and lifestyle advice.

“Herbal medicine has become very popular currently, and it can be a powerful force for healing when done appropriately.  Each patient, after a detailed consultation and a diagnostic, when necessary, will be prescribed a personalised formula which will target her or his own imbalances.

A lot of knowledge and experience goes into writing an herbal formula. Each plant is chosen carefully for their own benefit but also for how well they would work in the prescribed combination with the other herbs.  A wrong herb can potentially cause side effects and a lot of damage if it is used over a long period of time,” Eca explains.

“It is popular now to take herbs as supplements like ashwagandha or turmeric which are often presented as beneficial for all sorts of conditions, but sometimes taking these herbs in high doses without a proper diagnostic can do more damage than good. I have seen in clinic many new patients presenting with side effects from taking these herbs in very high quantities over long periods of time.”

Can Chinese herbal medicine boost your IVF treatment?

Chinese herbal medicine has been used for centuries to enhance fertility by regulating the endocrine system, balancing hormones, nourishing the blood and reducing stress.

Eca believes that each patient should prepare before their IVF procedure for at least one month and ideally three months, using Traditional Chinese Medicine; not only to increase the chances of a successful IVF and to achieve an easy pregnancy, but also for the health benefits for your baby.

“I always follow the lead of your fertility doctor. It is not necessarily for me to have direct contact with them, but I always request that my patients ask permission from their doctor to have the treatments.

“The herbal medication is more often used in preparation to IVF, not necessarily during.  Herbal medicine is safe but always under the supervision of a qualify herbalist.”

As Eca points out, the quantity of herbs in supplements purchased at natural food shops can often exceed what she would normally prescribe to her patients: “The amount of turmeric in one pill that you buy from Holland & Barrett can be too much. When I make up a formula, I might use 8 grams of turmeric for a monthly prescription in combination with other herbs.  If you go to H&B and take three pills in a day, you’ve taken the same amount that I would be prescribing over a month.”

To find out more about Eca and arrange a consultation, please click here. For more information on the individual practitioners and organisations offering support, advice, and information to those undergoing fertility treatment, please visit our Support Hub.

According to HFEA, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, cycles of egg freezing have increased tenfold in the UK in the space of a decade, as more and more women start families later in life and look for ways to preserve their fertility.

Now, a large-scale US report on elective fertility preservation outcomes has found that using frozen eggs are a more efficient option than IVF with fresh eggs or embryos at a later age.

The researchers found that 70% of women who froze eggs when they were younger than 38 and then thawed at least 20 eggs later went on to have a baby. In comparison, fewer than 30% of women undergoing IVF at age 40 using fresh eggs became pregnant and fewer than 20% gave birth to live babies.

“Our findings shed light on the factors that track with successful births from egg freezing, which include careful screening of embryos to be thawed and implanted,” says lead author Sarah Druckenmiller Cascante at the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at NYU Langone.

“A better understanding of the live birth rate from egg freezing for age-related fertility decline is necessary to inform patient decision-making.”

Within the study, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, 543 patients participated with an average age of 38 years old at the time of the first egg freeze, which is older than the generally recommended age to freeze eggs which is 35 years old or younger.

Overall, the study established that 39% of women between 27 and 44 years old, with a majority between 35 and 40 years old at egg freeze, had a least one child from their frozen eggs. Across all ages, women who thawed more than 20 mature eggs had a 58% live birth rate and women under 38 years old who had 20 or more mature eggs thawed achieved a 70% live birth rate per patient.

The study also showed that preimplantation genetic screening with embryos from frozen and eventually thawed eggs resulted in lower miscarriage rates and higher live birth rates per transfer.

The growing popularity of egg freezing

Awareness of fertility preservation is gaining traction in the media with celebrities such as Love Island’s Amy Hart speaking candidly about their decision to freeze eggs. There are many reasons why a woman may choose to delay starting their family, which may include not being in the right place in terms of their relationship or career, or not in a financial position to proceed at this point.

The improvement in the clinical methods used to collect the eggs, assess them for maturity and viability, and then freeze them has also contributed to the success of egg freezing. Previously, the slow freezing process had a survival rate of approximately 30%, but the current method of vitrification means survival rates of over 90% typically.

For more advice on the benefits of egg freezing, call +44 (0) 203 263 6025 to arrange a consultation.

Every June the focus is on male health as Men’s Health Awareness Week campaigns to heighten awareness of preventable health problems and encourage men to choose healthier lifestyle choices.

It’s estimated that male infertility is a factor in 40 to 50% of infertility cases and, in recent years, there has been much research into the crucial role that modifiable lifestyle factors play.

One key lifestyle factor that is known to affect male fertility is being overweight, but the good news is that the damage is reversible. A new study has found that obese men who lose weight – and are able to keep it off – can increase their sperm count by 40%.

Danish researchers studied a group of 47 obese men and their findings were recently published in the journal Human Reproduction. The men were placed on a low-calorie diet for eight weeks and lost on average of 36 lbs. Sperm counts were measured both before and after the diet and discovered a substantial increase in sperm count.

“This study shows that sperm concentration and sperm count were improved after a diet-induced weight loss in men with obesity,” concluded researcher Signe Sørensen Torekov, a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

The study also revealed the importance of committing to these lifestyle changes – the men were revisited a year later, and half the men had regained the weight, resulting in a corresponding decline in their sperm count.

Other lifestyle factors that could cause male infertility

Obesity can affect hormone levels causing reduced sperm production and concentration and there may also be a link between a raised BMI and both sperm motility and morphology (movement and shape) and DNA damage. However, being overweight isn’t the only lifestyle factor that is known to affect male fertility. Smoking, stress, excessive alcohol consumption, and recreational drugs can all play a role.

Male fertility assessments

The focus of this year’s Male Health Awareness week is the importance of a Man MOT, with guidance on how to check your mental and physical wellbeing and why you should undergo regular health screening checks.

At Aria Fertility, we offer a range of male fertility investigations. The first step is a review of your general health and your medical history. You will then be asked to provide a semen sample and we assess the quality of your sperm, including viscosity, volume, concentration, motility, and morphology. This information is used to advise you of the appropriate fertility treatment plan.

Other tests include those to identify microbes in semen plasma, DNA damage, or sperm maturity.

To book your male fertility assessments, call +44 (0) 203 263 6025.