The news that Sarah Brown allegedly had a course of acupuncture before conceiving will no doubt persuade some women desperate for a baby to give it a try. The 42-year-old wife of the chancellor, Gordon Brown, apparently did it to increase her fertility. But is there any evidence that the treatment increases your chances of pregnancy?
The general idea is that ill health arises because the energy (qi) flow through the body is disrupted. Sticking needles into some of the body's 400 or so acupressure points is supposed to restore this balance. It certainly works for some things, such as relieving pain. But what about fertility? "Medical data has been scanty at best," says Dr Pak Chung, an infertility specialist from Cornell University in New York. In 2002, he reviewed all the studies and concluded that only one was reliable enough to draw any firm conclusions, and even that had flaws.
This one study looked at 160 women undergoing IVF, who were randomly split into two groups. Half received two courses of acupuncture, before and after fertilised eggs were transferred into their uteruses. The other half did not. Of those who didn't submit to the needles, 26.3% went on to get pregnant. Of those who did, 42.5% conceived. It sounds promising, but a better study would have ruled out any potential placebo effect, by pricking one group with "fake" retractable needles.
Other studies have shown that acupuncture can increase blood flow to the uterus, which leads to a thicker lining. But none of these have been proven to actually increase the likelihood of conception.
The problem is that testing any medical treatment reliably takes a lot of work. You can't just retrospectively compare the pregnancy rate in people who have had the treatment with those who didn't, because the difference may be due to some other linked factor. Maybe women who try acupuncture are generally more likely to look after their health and so have a better chance of conception from the start.
Dr Mike Cummings, medical director of the British Medical Acupuncture Society, agrees that the evidence is far from conclusive. "It's clearly too early to talk about using it on the NHS," he says. But for women desperate for a child, a few sessions may be a small price to pay. My advice would be to save your money.
