Infertility
By Journalist Jesper Haller, jha@dadl.dk
"We need a breakthrough in infertility treatment. Perhaps we can get it from acupuncture." A rather remarkable statement from a Danish specialist, Dr.Med.
Lars Grabow Westergaard wants to find out if it can really be true that thin needles placed at twelve points on a woman's body can significantly improve the chances of an artificially fertilized egg implanting in the uterus. And he also wants to know the reason.
"IVF treatment is a bit stagnant. The implantation rate – that is, the chance of the implanted, fertilized egg attaching itself – has remained fairly constant at 25-30 percent in the best clinics over the past 4-5 years, even though many changes in treatment, etc., have been attempted. We need a breakthrough. Acupuncture is inspiring because it represents a completely different angle," explains Westergaard.
"We have teamed up with a very experienced acupuncturist, who both provides the treatments at the clinic himself and trains our three anaesthetic nurses."
The experienced acupuncturist is Steen Sandrini. He has a two-year education from the Nordic Institute for Traditional Chinese Medicine and is a member of the Association of Practicing Acupuncturists.
Read the full story on the Ugeskrift for Læger website.
