Learn how Tradition Chinese Medicine prepares the soil (your uterus) for the seed (your egg)
At Eau Claire Acupuncture and Fertility, we want to see you achieve your fertility and pregnancy goals. But, we want to ensure your body is ready to get pregnant, so your resources and planning are well spent.
We focus on understanding your current symptoms so your fertility journey is not only focused on the goal of pregnancy, but rather, focused on making sure you feel your best at each stage of your fertility journey. More specifically, we want to focus on the follicle and uterine environment being nourished leading up to timed intercourse.
Let’s break down some basics
We want fertility and pregnancy to make sense from both a clinical/biologic and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective. Understanding your body’s biology can help you visualize our approach and recommendations.
Every woman is born with as many eggs as she will have in her lifetime. Each egg begins as a primordial follicle, which means the egg is surrounded by cells that nourish the egg as it begins to mature and prepare for maturation and release into the fallopian tubes during ovulation. It takes about 90 days for a primordial follicle to mature into an egg ready for release at ovulation; this 90 day window is the prep time many Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners use to prepare the body to begin trying for pregnancy.
Each step in the reproductive process relies on many other steps to occur synchronously and successfully. For example, once a healthy egg is released into the fallopian tubes from the ovaries and is successfully fertilized, the uterine environment must be ready to receive it. We focus specific treatment on different steps of the fertility process; for example, we may devote a treatment to egg development at beginning stages and building uterine lining around timed intercourse.
Acupuncture, herbal medicine, and nutrition supplementation all serve as important factors in preparing your whole body for pregnancy. Successful pregnancy isn’t just about your reproductive system; rather, it is an intricate interplay of all of your systems’ interaction. Addressing health concerns that may not seem related to pregnancy, such as nervous system, digestive, metabolic, or immune concerns, can help to balance the body and prepare for pregnancy.
Signs your body isn’t ready to conceive
Erratic Cycle
- If your cycle comes and goes irregularly, you skip a cycle, or your cycle isn’t regular across a general 28 day period, you may have an irregular cycle.
- This can mean that you may not be ovulating, or having the necessary hormone surges across your cycle.
Period Pain
- Cramping, low back pain, and abdominal pain during your period are not normal in TCM
- Warming and bringing blood to the uterus, and breaking up stagnation can help to resolve pain and tension in the uterus
Clots or dark blood in your period
- This may indicate that there is poor circulation to your uterine environment
- In TCM, this is interpreted as stagnation
- Our goal is to have your period have moderate flow of bright red blood with little pain
You always feel cold
- Cold hands and feet, or even cold core body temp, are signals your body is struggling to stay warm or maintain a comfortable level of homeostasis
- In TCM, warmth is strongly associated with pregnancy. Thus, we focus on adding in warming foods, herbs, and acupuncture and moxibustion strategies.
Scanty period
- If your period is less than 4-5 days of moderate flow, this may indicate that your uterine lining is thin or you have a nutrient deficiency.
Nervous System Dysregulation
- This can show up in many different ways: night sweats, high anxiety, heart palpitations, insomnia, racing thoughts, feeling on edge, irritability, or being snippy.
- If your nervous system can’t balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic, your body may be tuned into “survival mode” which isn’t conducive to pregnancy
- Acupuncture helps combat your fight or flight response through activating your rest and digest mode.
Chronic constipation or digestive concerns
- Bowel movements help to clear out hormones from your body – therefore, if you are not eliminating daily, hormones can become recirculated in the body
- Chronic diarrhea can also indicate poor nutrient absorption
Brain fog or disconnection
- Clinically, this often doesn’t have an immediate solution, but in TCM, a feeling of disconnection is an important piece of the puzzle
- The smooth flow of Qi and the connection between the heart and your other organs can often show up through emotion of sense of self within body
How does acupuncture work?
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, the goal of acupuncture treatment is to restore balance in your meridians, as energetic imbalance can prevent your body from achieving pregnancy. For example, someone who is under constant stress or physical strain doesn’t have the biological framework to support a pregnancy, as pregnancy requires lots of chemical, biological, and energetic resources in the body. Thus, we are looking to restore balance in the body, so that symptoms signaling your body is out of balance (such as pain, irregular cycles, inflammation) begin to resolve and therefore prepare you for pregnancy.
Science backs up the mechanisms of acupuncture, as energetic changes can be chemically traced and analyzed through signaling molecules that rely on the energetic potential of cells. For example, acupuncture helps to modulate the neuroendocrine system. By promoting positive nervous system communication through cellular signaling molecules, acupuncture can help to achieve balanced immune, nerve, and hormone signaling necessary for successful ovulation, follicle development, and implantation (Xu, 2022).
Plus, acupuncture helps to regulate the Hypothalamic Pituitary Ovarian Axis, which is a line of communication between your brain, pituitary gland, and ovaries. If one of these organs isn’t communicating with the other, the entire chain of communication can be thrown off. Oftentimes, in PCOS patients for example, dysregulation in this axis can cause certain hormones to be excreted at too high or low of rates for successful pregnancy (Bergo et al., 2023). Restoring balanced communication can allow for regulation of your cycle and effective communication for pregnancy.
Our game plan:
If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms, we can help address these very common concerns.
Schedule your fertility consultation to get started!
Having these symptoms but just looking to regulate your cycle and feel more like yourself?
Schedule your new patient consultation here!
When you start care at Eau Claire Acupuncture, we review your complete health history. We want to know your story, so that our approach is completely tailored to exactly where your body needs support. Next we formulate a custom treatment plan based on where you are at in your cycle, your history of fertility, IVF/IUI prep, or just starting from the beginning.
Want to reduce inflammation in your body through dietary or supplement recommendations alone?
Schedule a BioScan to kickstart your fertility journey!
Written by: Leandra O’Connell
References
Bergo, I. (2023). Hormone imbalance in polycystic ovarian syndrome. Acta Biol. Marisiensis, 6, 10.
Xu, J. Y., Zhao, A. L., Xin, P., Geng, J. Z., Wang, B. J., & Xia, T. (2022). Acupuncture for female infertility: discussion on action mechanism and application. Evidence‐Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2022(1), 3854117.
