Getting pregnant after failed IVF:

Successful cases with acupuncture treatment

----Dr. Decheng Chen: The Specialist For Failed IVF

[NEW YORK] A couple who had married for nine years sought for medical treatment for their infertility. They had taken many years’ artificial insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilization (IVF), but all failed. During the past three years, they had received 4 times of IUI and 3 times of IVF, and taken medications for 6 years to stimulate ovulation, which resulted in two implantations, but all aborted in 4-6 weeks. After each failure, her reproductive specialists advised her to try again, but this time she doesn’t want to try IVF anymore, because every time she must receive a large amount of chemical hormone. Every time she was full of hopes but ended in frustration and disappointment. She realized that there might be something wrong with her.

Thanks to her friend’s reference, she came to Dr. Decheng Chen’s office. After four months’ acupuncture and TCM treatment and conditioning, her seventh IVF came to a success. Now she has already got pregnant for 6 months and it shows that the baby is growing well. This is one of the many cases of failed IVF who spent so much money, time, and effort in their IVF, but successfully got pregnant after Chinese medicine conditioning support. Why does it happen? Dr. Decheng Chen said in addition to her poor quality of follicles, the main cause is poor uterus circulation which cannot provide enough blood to the uterus, resulting in insufficient blood supply to the uterus. Cold infertility is the main reason, so the treatment must focus on warming the uterus and expelling the cold, as well as stimulating blood circulation and moving the Qi (defined as energy) so as to improve the blood supply to the uterus and enrich the endometrial nutrient, resulting in successful pregnant.

Since the birth of first IVF baby that was accomplished by British scholars Steptoe and Edwards’s, human assisted reproductive technology has made significant progresses. The research results indicated the success rate of IVF for the women of 25-35 years old is higher than average rate, even reaching 50% or higher. However, the rate decreased in women over 35 years old, and only 20% for women of 40 years old. The average rate is about 30%, which means two third women who accept IVF come to a failure. How can they do?

Dr. Decheng said there are a lot of reasons for the failure of IVF, but the main reason is either the poor quality of follicles or the poor internal condition of uterus. The failure occurs either prior to implantation or after implantation. The reason of failure needs specific analysis. Normally the failure prior to implantation is due to the poor quality of follicles which makes it difficult to fertilize. The poor quality of a fertilized egg caused by the deficiency of kidney function also leads to failure. The post-implantation failure is mainly caused by the poor internal condition of uterus, such as uterine fibroids, polyps, or endometriosis, as well as thin endometrium and uterine poor blood circulation, which lead to inadequate nutrition thus causing failure. This is referred to as “cold uterus infertility”. Both of the two situations above can be treated with acupuncture and Chinese medicine and the success rate has come to 70% in Dr. Decheng Chen’s office.

Dr. Decheng Chen, a licensed acupuncturists of NY state and MD (China), has the Western academic background with bachelor's, master's and doctor’s degrees. He has more than 11 years of formal medical education and nearly 30 years of clinical experience. He graduated from Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, where he completed his doctoral training under the supervision by Professor Qiu Maoliang, a world-renowned acupuncture scientist. After graduation, he was appointed to be the deputy director of the Beijing Academy of Traditional Chinese physicians. He has published "Chinese acupuncture single-point therapy" and other 15 monographs and hundreds of articles. He ever visited Egypt on behalf of China to provide acupuncture treatment for Egyptian former President Hosni Mubarak.

Dr. Decheng Chen said in the past 3 years, he has treated a total of 68 cases of patients with failed IVF, two cases of which are female between the age of 25 and 29 years old, 18 cases between 30-34, 28 cases between 35- 39, and 20 cases more than 40 years old. Among these cases, there are 30 cases of IVF failure prior to implantation and 38 cases of failure after implantation; 12 cases with PCOS, 5 cases with uterine fibroids, and 4 cases with endometriosis. Through acupuncture and Chinese medicine treatment conditioning for 1-6 months, natural pregnancy has come to 16 cases which account for 23.5% and 32 cases of successful IVF which account for 70.5% of all cases.

Another example is a 42-year-old woman, who had never been pregnant. Her monthly menstruation was normal, but in a very small amount. Her follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) was 18.5 and estrogen (E2) was 21. At the start of IVF, though using high doses of fruit Carolina Finland (Gonal-f®) 450mg / day, there was still no sign of the growth of follicles, so she had to terminate the treatment. When infertility specialist told her that she could not give birth again and the only way is to get pregnant by egg donation, she cried. She was referred by a nice person and came to our office, where both she and her husband received Chinese medicine conditioning treatment at the same time. At the beginning of treatment, she had no ovulation with menstrual pain, in spite of normal menstruation. This symptom is ovarian dysfunction, which is referred to as kidney and blood stasis in the view of traditional Chinese medicine. Acupuncture is to stimulate ovarian function, improve blood circulation of the uterus. Traditional Chinese medicine is mainly to nourish follicles and increase the blood supply to the uterus and ovaries. After three months of comprehensive treatment through acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine conditioning, FSH decreased to 8.3 and E2 rose to 39. Then she started the second IVF. This time four high-quality eggs were obtained and taken out. Two were implanted, and the other two were frozen. Then she got successful pregnancy. She got a baby boy and now the child is 7 months.

Dr. Decheng Chen makes detailed analyses on each patient of IVF failure to identify the causes, such as age, ovulation pause, or follicular dysplasia. Treatment is mainly based on nourishing the eggs, blood, and essence. In case of the poor uterus blood circulation, the treatment principle is to tonify the blood circulation by warming the uterus and expelling the cold, such as ovarian or uterine associated with other diseases, polycystic ovarian, uterine fibroids, endometriosis, etc.. The treatment of primary diseases is required at the same time of the physical conditioning so as to achieve an optimal state of pregnancy, which greatly has improved the success of IVF rate.

Dr. Decheng Chen’s clinics was founded more than 10 years ago in Manhattan. It is now renamed as Dr. Decheng Chen’s Medical Center. The treatment of gynecological infertility is one of our major specialties. In addition, we treat headache, cervical spondylosis, lumbar muscle strain, lumbar disc and knee pain and other kinds of pain with acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, which usually take effect rapidly. We also provide treatment for chronic cough, gastroenteritis, eczema and acne. The United Health Care, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Aetna, Oxford and the first health insurance card for elderly are accepted.

Dr. Decheng Chen’s Medical Center Address:

Midtown Manhattan: 161 Madison Ave suite 2N (between 32/33 Street). New York, NY 10016

Phone: 212-564-3324

Long Island: 1334 5th Ave, New Hyde Park, NY 11040

Website www.acupunctureland.com