Acupuncture for Fertility, Pregnancy, Women’s Health and Wellness in Oakland, CA

I want to be honest about why I am posting this.

A systematic review and meta-analysis was recently published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Women's Health examining ten common IVF add-ons including acupuncture, endometrial scratching, platelet-rich plasma, and others. The conclusion: none of them showed sufficient evidence to improve live birth rates. Acupuncture was lumped in with the rest and the headline wrote itself.

As someone who has spent fifteen years doing this work with fertility patients, I found it deeply frustrating. Not because I am defensive about acupuncture. Because the methodology does not reflect how acupuncture is actually practiced and patients deserve to know that before they make decisions based on a headline.

The studies keep measuring the same thing: a fixed point prescription, one or two sessions around transfer day, compared against sham acupuncture. That is not fertility acupuncture. That is a needle protocol. And there is a significant difference.

Swipe through for the four reasons acupuncture and IVF research keeps missing the mark, and what good research would actually need to look like.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#acupuncture #IVF #fertilityacupuncture #TCM #chinesemedicine

Fertility foods. What TCM has been saying for thousands of years and what nutritional science is now confirming.

Every food on this list has both a TCM energetic rationale and a nutritional one, because that is how I think about food with my fertility patients.

Eggs for Kidney jing and mitochondrial health. Walnuts for Kidney yang and omega-3s, both partners. Black sesame for Liver Blood and zinc. Dark leafy greens for Liver qi and folate, cooked not raw. Bone broth for jing and glycine. Salmon for Blood tonification and DHA. Dates and goji berries for yin nourishment and antioxidant protection.

Food is not separate from your fertility treatment. It is part of it.

Swipe through for the full breakdown of what each food does and how to use it. Save this post and share it with someone who needs it.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#fertilityfood #fertilitynutrition #acupuncture #TCM #chinesemedicine

Last night I was at Spring Fertility’s Social Sips mixer in the East Bay, and it was exactly the kind of evening that reminds me why I love this work.

Spring Fertility brings together practitioners from across the fertility space a few times a year for an evening of connection. Last night that included a maker bar where you could customize hats, bags, and charms, and a special patch commemorating a milestone worth celebrating: 10,000 pregnancies.

10,000.

I have been working alongside Spring Fertility for years and they are the most collaborative, integrative fertility clinic I have encountered in the Bay Area.

Acupuncturists, OB/GYNs, therapists, and reproductive specialists genuinely welcome at the same table, working toward the same goal. This is what it looks like when a clinic actually means it.

If you are a health practitioner in the fertility space and want to be in this room at the next one, I would love to see you there.

@springfertility
📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio

#springfertility #fertilityacupuncture #IVF #acupuncture #TCM

The research community has been working to legitimize acupuncture in fertility care for years.

We never needed the validation. The results always spoke first.

This is the baby wall at City Pulse. Fifteen years at City Pulse Acupuncture in Oakland.

To every fertility acupuncturist with their own version of this: you know.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | Oakland CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#fertilityacupuncture #IVF #acupuncture #TCM #chinesemedicine

Acupuncture and IVF.

Not because Western medicine said so. Because thousands of years of clinical practice and fifteen years of watching it work say so.

There has been a lot of noise recently around studies attempting to legitimize acupuncture as an IVF adjunct. The research is genuinely meaningful and growing. But Traditional Chinese Medicine has been a clinical practice for thousands of years. The studies are welcome. They are not a surprise.

When timed correctly to each phase of your cycle and your protocol, acupuncture is an active clinical intervention, not a passive add-on. It improves blood flow to the ovaries and uterus, supports follicle development and egg quality, regulates the hormonal environment, reduces the physiological stress response that can interfere with implantation, and supports uterine receptivity around transfer.

Swipe through for the full breakdown of what acupuncture does at each phase of an IVF cycle, who should consider it, and what the research actually says.

If you are preparing for a cycle or currently in one, I would love to talk about how acupuncture can support your specific protocol. And if you are working with an RE, the conversation about acupuncture as an adjunct is worth having.

📍 City Pulse Acupuncture | CA
🔗 Link in bio to book

#IVF #acupuncture #fertility #TCM #chinesemedicine