Fertile Thoughts: Alternative Therapies

Q:  What do you think of alternative therapies, particularly herbal/naturopathic remedies? Is there any risk in taking herbs at the same time as fertility drugs?

A: Couples frequently ask about non-traditional therapies for infertility. There are very few controlled studies involving the use of herbal/naturopathic remedies for the treatment of fertility, so it is hard to talk about how useful these therapies may or may not be. Part of the problem is that since these remedies are often produced from crude plant or animal extracts and their production is not regulated by most governments (certainly not the FDA in the US), the potency from batch to batch and from manufacturer to manufacturer may vary dramatically. This variability makes it hard to compare results from treatment.

Many of the medicines in use today were originally derived from the extracts of plants and animals that were purified and the active ingredient then isolated and produced in a form that contains a very precise amount of the active ingredient. We call these drugs. I have no doubt that many herbal therapies may contain compounds that affect (positively or negatively) one’s fertility. The question is what exactly is it in the herbal therapy that is active and how much is in that batch? I would advise against using herbal/naturopathic therapies in conjunction with conventional infertility treatment unless you talk with your reproductive specialist first. Some of the ingredients in these remedies may actually interfere with the action of certain fertility medications.

On a positive note, there are a number of scientific studies that suggest that acupuncture may be a helpful adjunct to fertility treatment. Most of these studies are done on individuals undergoing in vitro fertilization; and they do show slightly higher pregnancy rates in the group that received acupuncture. The number of individuals in these studies is usually small, so the results are still debated in the medical community. However, the evidence is good enough that a number of fertility clinics in the United States now offer acupuncture as a therapy option in conjunction with other infertility treatments.