Fertility Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Medicine
In the classical texts of Chinese medicine, what we now call infertility was sometimes described more simply: wanting children.
Infertility is a useful diagnosis, but it can also mislead. Often what we're looking at is a collection of possible reasons pregnancy hasn't happened yet — or hasn't continued as hoped.
When I work with someone who wants a child, I look at the health of the whole person, paying particular attention to two things: Does the body have the material resources it needs to create and sustain a new life? And are those resources moving freely, healthfully and in the rhythms necessary for conception, implantation and pregnancy? Chinese medicine gives us a different lens for asking those questions.
Preparing for Pregnancy
Whenever possible, I like having time to work together before conception or fertility treatment begins.
Rather than chasing individual symptoms or treating fertility as separate from the rest of your health, I look for the patterns connecting what you're experiencing — your cycle, sleep, digestion, energy, stress, temperature, pain, and emotional state can all be useful information.
I use palpation and traditional diagnostic methods to guide acupuncture, with moxibustion, massage, or other hands-on techniques added when helpful.
The goal isn't to make your body perfect before pregnancy. It's to understand what it needs and support your health as you move toward it.
Acupuncture During IVF
Many of my fertility patients come to me after they've already decided to pursue IVF or another form of assisted reproduction. In that case, Chinese medicine isn't an alternative to your care — it's support alongside it.
We may use acupuncture to help you feel better physically through medications and procedures, create some space around the stress of treatment, and give you a place where your experience — not just your numbers — is attended to.
When we can start before an IVF cycle, I prefer it. It gives us time to understand your body before medications enter the picture and address anything that may benefit from support ahead of treatment.
I'm comfortable in both worlds. I respect the role of reproductive medicine while continuing to see and care for the whole person moving through it.
Chinese Herbal Medicine for Fertility
When someone is trying to conceive and isn't in an IVF medication cycle, I often recommend Chinese herbal medicine.
Herbal medicine for people wanting children goes back thousands of years, with fertility, pregnancy, and women's health discussed extensively in the classical literature. But that doesn't mean there's one traditional "fertility formula" I give everyone.
I use your history along with pulse and abdominal diagnosis to understand the pattern your body is presenting, and I prefer the simplest intervention that can do what we're asking of it — whether that's an herbal formula or an acupuncture treatment. Your formula is specific to you, and it changes as your body changes.
What Working Together Looks Like
For someone beginning fertility care with me, I generally recommend six weekly treatments, with individualized herbal treatment when appropriate.
Those first six weeks give us time. Rather than deciding what your body needs from a single snapshot, I can see how you respond from one treatment to the next, and adjust accordingly.
After that, we decide together what makes sense. For someone trying to conceive without assisted reproduction, that might mean supportive visits around particular points in the cycle. For someone preparing for fertility treatment, our schedule may shift as that approaches. Others continue weekly because they value how they feel with regular acupuncture. There isn't one correct path.
And this matters more than it might sound: I want coming in for acupuncture to feel good.
Trying to have a child can become consuming — cycles to track, decisions to make, tests to interpret, sometimes medications and procedures to navigate. Your appointment doesn't need to feel like one more thing being done to you.
My treatments are unhurried, gentle, and hands-on. There's time to tell me what's happening, time for me to listen to what your body is showing me, and time for your system to settle.
For many patients, acupuncture becomes one of the best parts of trying to have a child — a weekly reset where they can feel cared for, deeply relaxed, and a little more like themselves.