How much does acupuncture increase IVF success?

Multiple systematic reviews covering thousands of women across dozens of randomised controlled trials have found that acupuncture integrated with IVF improves clinical pregnancy rates, live birth rates, and embryo quality. The effect is most consistent when acupuncture is started well before the IVF cycle — ideally three months prior — and continued through stimulation, retrieval, and transfer. The reason sits in the nervous system. Acupuncture shifts the body out of sympathetic dominance — the stress state that raises cortisol and disrupts reproductive hormones — and into the parasympathetic mode that IVF needs to work in. Sessions timed around embryo transfer have also been shown to reduce uterine contractions, which matters for implantation. Preparation, in other words, is where most of the work happens.