Can Complementary/Alternative Medicine be used to Treat Infertility?

Abstract

Infertility affects more than 7.3 million American women. When traditional treatments fail, alternative methods may be sought, but unfortunately some of them could be exploitative rather than legitimate. The intent of this article is to examine various complementary alternative medicine (CAM) treatments and techniques, and assess their known efficacy in the treatment of infertility. For research purposes, the National Institutes of Health has divided CAM into five domains: (1) whole medical systems; (2) mind-body medicine; (3) biologically based practices; (4) manipulative and body-based practices; and (5) energy medicine. Each of these domains is defined and discussed. Scientific evidence relating to the efficacy of procedures is presented and correlated to fertility outcomes. Information for nursing interventions is included as a means of better understanding what the infertile couple needs.

Traditional practices used by the infertile women to become pregnant and their effects on the quality of life

“…‘SF‐36 Quality of Life Scale’ and ‘Participatory Information Form’ developed by the researcher with the help of literature were used in data collection . Participatory Information Form includes the questions about definig characteristics (age, education status, profession, income level and marriage time), infertility (time, type and reasons of infertility) and traditional practices (resort to traditional practices, types of traditional practices, application time of traditional practices, acquiring information about traditional practices, cost and effects on health).…”

“…'SF-36 Quality of Life Scale' and 'Participatory Information Form' developed by the researcher with the help of literature were used in data collection. 3,6,8,11,15,16 Participatory Information Form includes the questions about definig characteristics (age, education status, profession, income level and marriage time), infertility (time, type and reasons of infertility) and traditional practices (resort to traditional practices, types of traditional practices, application time of traditional practices, acquiring information about traditional practices, cost and effects on health). SF-36 Quality of Life Scale (Short From 36) was developed by Rand Corporation, and its Turkish reliability and validity were made by Kocyigit et al For reliability, internal consistency was investigated and Cronbach alpha coeffcients changed between 0.73 and 076 for sub-dimensions.…”

The Relationship between Infertility and Nutrition

“…In another cohort study done on women who received IVF treatment, women who were supplemented with folic acid had healthier oocytes compared to the women who didn't and they had more mature oocytes compared to them [76]. An intake of 700μg of folic acid daily was reported to be effective on ovary caused infertility and increase the rate of pregnancy 40-50% [77]. For this reason, women planning pregnancies are supplemented with folic acid.…”

Helping patients through the pain of infertility

“…6 This requires couples to pay "out of pocket" and therefore, these procedures become inaccessible. 44,45 Relaxation techniques have also been studied in groups of infertile women. 43 While this does refl ect signifi cant progress for infertile couples, the vast majority of IVF/ART cycles (63.9%) still do not result in clinical pregnancies.…”