Complementary Medicine & Fertile Wellness

Acupuncture in IVF Linked to Lower Miscarriage and Ectopic Rates

Acupuncture in IVF Linked to Lower Miscarriage and Ectopic Rates PHILADELPHIA —

Women who receive acupuncture during the stimulation phase of an in vitro fertilization cycle and again immediately after embryo transfer have a higher live-birth rate than do controls, according to the first acupuncture study with this end point.

“Other studies have looked at pregnancy rates, but what is really important is whether or not there is a baby,” said Paul C. Magarelli, M.D., who reported his findings at the annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

The retrospective study included 131 women who were undergoing standard in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

All of these women were considered good prognosis candidates for IVF/ICSI and were given the choice of having acupuncture. A total of 83 women declined (controls) and 48 accepted. There were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of infertility diagnoses, demographics, and treatment protocols, except that sperm morphology was slightly better in the partners of women receiving acupuncture (7.3% vs. 5.9 % normal forms with strict criteria evaluation), and the average uterine artery pulsatility index was lower in the acupuncture group (1.57 vs. 1.72), said Dr. Magarelli of the department of ob.gyn. at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

The study found that pregnancy rates per embryo transfer were not significantly different between the two groups (50% in the acupuncture group and 45% in controls). The miscarriage rate was almost halved in the acupuncture group (8% vs. 14%). In addition, the rate of ectopic pregnancies was significantly lower in the acupuncture group—0 of 24 pregnancies (0%) vs. 2 of 37 pregnancies (9%), said Dr. Magarelli, who is also in private practice in Colorado Springs and Albuquerque.

Thus, the live-birth rate per IVF/ICSI cycle was significantly higher in the acupuncture group than in controls (21% vs. 16%). “The live-birth rate per pregnancy is an even more telling number, since some cycles get cancelled.

There was a 42% live-birth rate per pregnancy in the acupuncture group, compared to a 35% rate in the nonacupuncture group,” Dr. Magarelli said in an interview with this newspaper. “We believe that what we are doing is improving the uterine environment such that implantation is improved,” he added. The study used two acupuncture protocols.

The Stener-Victorin electrostimulation protocol—which has been shown to reduce high uterine artery blood flow impedence, or pulsatility index (Hum. Reprod. 1996;11:1314-7)—was used for eight treatments during ovarian stimulation.

The second acupuncture technique—the Paulus protocol, which has been associated with improved pregnancy rates (Fertil. Steril. 2002;77:721-4)—was used within 24 hours before the embryo transfer and 1 hour after. “This protocol has demonstrated reductions in uterine contractility, so by relaxing the uterus before the embryo transfer and immediately after, we felt we were setting up a better environment for implantation,” Dr. Magarelli said.

For more information on IVF and acupuncture, visit www.berkleycenter.com

877-965-BABY

Fertility Massage

Hello, my name is Tara Russell, and I am pleased to introduce myself as the Fertility Massage therapist at The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness.

I am trained in Fertility Massage, and I am excited to be a part of The Berkley Center team, helping couples to make their dream of conception a reality.

Fertility Massage helps improve your fertility quotient by increasing blood flow to the reproductive environment, improving egg quality and endometrial receptivity.

Additionally, the techniques that I have developed also serve to decrease the emotional and physical stresses that are part of the sometimes long and arduous journey to motherhood.

Massage can cause the body to normalize hormone levels that are related to stress such as cortisol and norepiniphrine.

PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) can be a very serious, fertility reducing disorder. It may also contribute to bone density loss and heart disease. It is the number one cause of infertility in women. Massage therapy can help treat this disorder via it’s ability to increase blood flow to the pelvis which can contribute to a resumption of ovulatory cycles.

Massage therapy can to:

- Reduce hypertension
- Regulate the menses
- Decrease anxiety and/or depression
- Increase production of “happy hormones” (endorphins) in the body
- Reduce pelvic and abdominal pain by releasing spasmed muscles in the abdomen and lower back

There are many complications which can contribute to infertility. Fertility Massage can contribute to the eradication or reduction of many of these disorders.

Specific techniques (some are one’s that I have created based on my experience in treating infertility), will be used to reach these goals and will be discussed in detail when we meet.

Call today to schedule a FREE mini consultation. We are here for you!

877-976-BABY

Food as Thy Medicine

Hello, Kathie Alli here; Director of Nutritional Services at The Berkley Center.

Cherries are in season from June until September so I wanted to share some information that may be helpful.

There are two types of cherries, sweet and tart or sour cherries. The most popular type of sweet cherry is the Bing cherry, which is sold fresh in the grocery store. Cherries should be large (at least an inch in diameter), glossy, plump, hard, and dark colored. Reject soft, flabby, bruised, or sticky fruit. The stems should be fresh and green. Avoid cherries without stems. You can loosely pack unwashed cherries in plastic bags and store them in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Tart or sour cherries are canned and used in pies, dried into fruit snacks, and made into juice concentrate. Like most other fruits, cherries are fat-free, low in calories and sodium, and high in certain minerals and vitamins such as potassium, Vitamin C, and B-complex vitamins.

Sweet and tart cherries contain pigments called anthocyanins, antioxidants that give cherries their dark red color. Tart cherries are among the top fruits as far as antioxidant levels go. Tart cherry juice and dried tart cherries are even higher in antioxidants than blueberries and more powerful than Vitamin E. Anthocyanins have powerful anti-inflammatory properties and according to the American Chemical Society, eating 20 tart cherries (or drinking the equivalent in juice concentrate) a day could provide the same pain relief that aspirin or ibuprofen do.

So instead of reaching for the bottle, you can reach for a bunch of tart cherries which are easier on the liver for relieving pain of inflammation.

Need an Acupuncturist who Specializes in Infertility?

So you want to find an acupuncturist who specializes in the treatment of infertility. So too do thousands of others suffering with infertility. Here’s the catch though; there are very, very few. There are many, many acupuncturists who treat infertility patients but this is analogous to me doing an ivf procedure; I wouldn’t know how to because I don’t have the necessary training.

A chiropractor specializes in treating musculoskeletal disorders, a podiatrist specializes in treating foot disorders, an ophthalmologist specializes in treating eye disorders and a neurologist specializes in treating nerve disorders.  Each one of these ‘specialists’ took classes that made them ‘special’ in their area of study.  I am using the word ‘special’ here to denote ‘expert’.

Upon visiting most print advertising by acupuncturists you will see that they ‘specialize’ in everything from acne to zollinger-ellison syndrome. These A to Z acupuncturists by the sheer fact that they say they treat all of these disorders is a sure tip-off that they do not specialize in any one of them. 

Remember, it takes years of continuous study and clinical practice to be a specialist; it takes seeing hundreds or thousands of patients with the same type of disorder to become an expert in all the subtleties and shades-of-gray associated with the disorder in which the practitioner specializes.

How can you tell if the acupuncturist you call is really a specialist in infertility?

When you call the clinic, ask the nurse/secretary or practitioner what they specialize in. They will answer you by asking you what your physical complaint is. Don’t tell them. Simply ask them again: “what is your specialty?”  This is the first step.  After they tell you (very rarely!) that they specialize in the treatment of infertility, visit their web-site. Once there, you should see nothing other than text and topics associated with infertility. If you see this to be the case (very, very rarely!), then you are in luck.

How can you tell if the acupuncturist is good?

You may want to know the following:

a.       How long have they been in practice?

b.      Are they licensed and Board certified in acupuncture and herbal medicine?

c.       What kind, and how much continuing education have they had in the topic of infertility?

d.      Have they written on the subject?

e.      Do they have a good relationship with one or more reproductive endocrinologists?

f.        Can they give you a reproductive endocrinologist as a personal reference?

g.       Are they available to treat you on the weekends if your IVF embryo-transfer occurs on a week-end. If not, can they guarantee coverage?

How Can You Find a Specialist?

There are not many options. The best one available at this time is www.aborm.org.  ABORM, or The American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine is an organization that those going through fertility challenges has been in need of for years. 

The purpose of the Board is to help educate and certify acupuncturists wishing to specialize in treating infertility cases.  The acupuncturists must take course work and sit for a rigorous examination. Upon passing the exam they receive the prestigious title of FABORM, Fellow, American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine. This nomenclature indicates a fairly high level of competence in the specialty of infertility and clinical applications of treatment.  Anyone who is certified by the ABORM is a legitimate infertility/acupuncture specialist.

Other options

One option that I provide to patients throughout the country and the world is telephone consultations. After conducting a telephone consultation with a patient, I can do several things: 1) create an herbal medicine prescription for the patient and, 2) create an acupuncture treatment protocol for the patient, and, 3) interface with their acupuncturist (even and especially if they do not specialize in the treatment of infertility) and manage the case from afar. The acupuncturist will, in essence, be my hands. I confer with the patient on a monthly basis to re-evaluate changes in their clinic status, change their herbal medicine prescription and alter the acupuncture protocol if necessary.

Because the infertility ‘market’ is booming, more and more opportunists are finding their way into the market place. But beware, it takes more than one saying that one is a specialist to be one.

Find Out More

Dr. Berkley's New Post-Pregnancy Treatment Protocol

For the past ten years I never needled the abdomen of a pregnant woman for fear of causing miscarriage. This method of behavior stems in part from fear of over-stimulating blood flow to the embryo or placenta. This thinking as I have recently discovered, is incorrect. It has taken me ten years of study and research to enable me to fully understand what is happening in the uterus after a successful pregnancy and why abdominal acupuncture for the first three months of pregnancy is not only safe but serves significantly to prevent miscarriage.

At the luteal phase or secretory phase of the menstrual cycle the predominant hormone is progesterone. Progesterone is created from the follicle that has ovulated the mature egg. This follicle is now know as the 'yellow body' or corpus lutuem. The corpus luteum, under the influence of luteininzing hormone which emanates from the anterior pituitary in the brain secretes progesterone. This action is done to enable the uterine lining to be amenable to a successful embryo implantation and pregnancy. If pregnancy is not successful, the corpus luteum becomes atretic (dies) and progesterone levels diminish and menstruation starts.

When a woman does successfully become pregnant, the LH which is required to maintain high levels of progesterone (P) no longer comes from the anterior pituitary gland in the brain. It comes in fact, from the developing blastocyst itself. The blastocyst (developing baby), secretes HCG or Human Chorionic Gonadotropin which has a very similar molecular structure to LH and the HCG causes the corpus lutum to continue to secrete P until the placenta is fully formed at which point the placenta itself secretes appropriate amounts of P to help maintain pregnancy.

So, if the developing blastocyst is repsonsible for secreting HCG to keep itself alive it made sense to me to use very few and well placed needles in the abdomen to gently stimulate blood flow to the blastocyst so that P would continue to be secreted from the corpus luteum.  This, in my opinion is one of the major ways that miscarriage prevention can be achieved with acupuncture. I am the first one to arrive at this idea and have been using it with great success.

After 6 or 7 weeks the placenta is formed and it secretes P. The corpus luteum is no longer necessary. But, one of the major causes of miscarriage is innapropriate blood flow to the placenta. But clinically what does this mean. Blood carries oxygen, hormones and nutrients to the placenta and excretes dead cells from it. These dead cells are called 'debris'. By continuing to use abdominal acupuncture, we continue to stimulate (gently) blood flow to the placenta maintaing its ability to secrete P, estrogen, human placental lactogen, relaxin and other hormones necessary for the maintenance of a healthy pregnancy and milk production after giving birth.

I am constantly studying Western medicine and anatomy and physiology and translating my findings into a Chinese medical model which serves to increase a useful knowledge base to help couples achieve pregnancy. However, achieving pregnancy is only half the battle. The other half is maintaining a healthy pregnancy.  The focus of many acupuncturists is to help their patients become pregnant. This too is my first goal, but only my first. My second goal is to maintain a viable pregnancy and this is where my research and studies are now taking me. 

I am pleased to say that at this point our successful pregnancy cases are remaining in the 30 to 40% bracket but our take-home-baby rates are climbing. It is to early to publish numbers but that will come over time. Suffice it to say, this new Berkley Center protocol is working wonders for chronic miscarriers.

All the best on your journey!

Dr. Berkley

Read More

Nutrition

We are pleased to welcome Kathie Alli, our Holistic Health & Nutrition Counselor. Kathie is a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition here in New York City. 

Kathie is now helping patients at the Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness achieve their general health goals as well as their fertilily health goals.  Of course one can not exist without the other.

Kathie brings her nutritonal experience, compassion, love and a very nurturing and compassionate approach to patient care.

We are proud of her achievements and we know that she will be an enormous asset to those wishing to improve their physical and emotional health through dietary and life-style changes. Kathie is highly qualified to help make your goals realities!

She offers a free mini-consultation for those wishing to find out more about her program.

Kathie can be reached at 877-965-BABY. Find out more at berkleycenter.com

Great People Make Great Companies!

It is imperative that any business hire the absolute best talent possible. Though this goal is well known, achieving it is quite difficult.

I want to say it out loud that I have been blessed by having the good fortune of making the above goal a reality.

1. Julia Wannamaker, my General Manager, has completely turned my practice around. She has taken charge of marketing, patient relations, accounting, hiring, training and motivating the whole team. She is a whirlwind lady who gets things done!  She is talking about leaving to go down south. Anyone who reads this, please call her at 212-685-0985 and ask her to stay! Thank you Julia for your amazing contributions.

2. Kathi Alli, our NEW Holistic Health & Nutrition Counselor saw her first patient today at The Berkley Center and I am so proud of her. She is a brilliant nutritionist, filled with love and joy and an unending desire to help patients achieve their dream of having a baby. I welcome you Kathi to this new position and I know that you are going to be great and so too are your patients!

3. Eileen Gallagher, our NEW Scheduling Coordinator, is doing so, so well. She is very gentle, caring and supportive on the phone and in person. She makes every patient feel right at home. She has her own inimitable charm and everyone is crazy about her. I am too!

4. Tara Russell, Fertility Massage therapist has been with the Berkley Center for quite sometime now. I can tell you this: people walk into her office stressed and leave walking on a cloud! Tara has helped many women re-align their uteri whether retro or anteverted. She has help patients reduce fibroids and increase endometrial lining thickness. Tara is fabulous.

I want to thank all of you great team members for making the Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness the 'Go To' place for Complementary medicine in New York City.

Bless you all!

Dr. Berkley

Director, The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness

Berkley Center & Batzofin Fertility Services

A Historical Moment in Reproductive Medicine!

I am incredibly pleased to announce that The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness & Batzofin Fertility Services have developed an association whereby we will be able to provide a true 'East Meets West' approach to patient care.

The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness will be providing acupuncture, customized herbal medicine, nutritional counseling and Maya abdominal massage all specifically designed to treat female and male fertility issues.

Batzofin Fertility Services will be providing high-tech reproductive medicine approaches which include intra-uterine-insemination, in-vitro-fertilization, donor-egg transfers and surrogacy services.  All blood-work and diagnostic evaluations including ultrasound, hysterosalpingography, hysteroscopy, etc. will be performed on site!   Batzofin Fertility Services will have a State-Of-The-Art embryology lab with a highly trained expert embryologist at the helm.

Dr. Joel Batzofin, an internationally recognized expert in the field of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) who has helped pioneer many important developments in the field, was born in South Africa. He graduated from the University of Witwatersrand Medical School. After an internship in South Africa, Dr. Batzofin immigrated to the United States where he completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. and graduated in 1983. He then did a fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he graduated in 1985. This was followed by a second fellowship in Reproductive Andrology and Male Infertility. Dr. Batzofin is therefore well qualified to address both male and female infertility issues.

Why Dr. Batzofin?  There are reproductive medicine clinics and there is Batzofin Fertility Services. Herein lies the difference: Dr. Batzofin is a master diagnostician who has had many successes where other doctors have failed. He is similar in his approach to diagnostics to a high-level detective. He will dig relentlessly until he finds out why conception has not occurred. You see, any reproductive endocrinologist can do multiple IUI's or IVF's; maybe, if luck prevails, success will manifest.  Dr. Batzofin prefers to spend more time trying to figure out why conception has not yet occurred and treating the underlying cause.

Dr. Batzofin is a leading expert on immunological disorders that frequently contribute to infertility.

Together, Drs. Batzofin and Berkley have taken a revolutionary step in patient care. We have found that by including the services that the Berkley Center has to offer with conventional high-tech- reproductive medical approaches, successful, take home baby rates have increased.

The other great news is that The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness and Batzofin Fertility Services are housed in the same facility at 16 East 40th Street! So, you only have to make one stop to have all of your reproductive needs met.  All pre and post embryo transfer acupuncture will be done right here, so you don't have to travel.

We invite you to join our family so that we may, as a team, help you to start yours!

Batzofin Fertility Service can be reached at: 212- 679-2289

The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness can be reached at: 877-965-BABY

Endometriosis: A New Perspective

It's Sunday May 27th, 1:35PM and I'm up in Green Wood Lake, New York. I'm siting on the porch of a beautiful home, listening to Bach Violin Concertos, feeling the beautiful slight breeze against my neck and looking forward to having my first glass of South African Excellsior Shiraz in about a half hour.  For the better part of yesterday and today I have been studying the reproductive effects of endometriosis and I am amazed at the beauty of how the body works and am in awe of what devastating effects on reproduction are manifest when it does not work properly.

I am always trying to look at traditional Chinese medicine with new eyes to see how it can best be used to treat reproductive disorders. Looking with new eyes means respecting the classical writings of the Masters but taking into consideration new data derived from studying Western medicine and understanding pathology from a biological perspective as opposed to strictly from a TCM perspective.  Many practitioners of TCM would think this is sacrilege but I think that lack of recognition of new data which can lead to better treatment outcomes is sacrilege.  Integration of all data including Classical information pertaining to disease-states obtained thousands of  years ago from Masters of Chinese medicine in combination with Western medical advances in diagnostics and treatments of diseases will undoubetdly yield the best outcomes. This is a case where one plus one equals three!

For example, the typical practitioner of TCM views endometriosis as a pattern of disharmony called stagnation of qi and stasis of blood. This diagnosis is from the Classics. It is only partially correct which means in essence that it is incorrect.  Based upon my research and studies I have concluded that the true differential diagnosis of endometriosis from a TCM perspective can only be qi stagnation and blood stasis with heat-toxin brewing internally.  How can this be, the TCM practitoner might ask? The endometriosis patient presents with pain pre-menstrually ( blood stasis) and pain with the period which is  either dull and aching ( qi stagnation and blood vacuity) or sharp and stabbing (blood vacuity engendering blood stasis). So, there it is: stagnation of qi and blood with possible blood vacuity. But, if one were to study the Western medicine literature on endometriosis one would find that the pain associated with endometriosis is derived from three etiologies: 1) The actions of inflammatory cytokines in the peritoneal cavity; 2) bleeding from endometrial implants; and 3)direct infiltration of nerves in the pelvic floor (neural inflammation).  Therefore, it becomes obvious that heat-toxin brewing is very much part of the etiology of pain related to endometriosis as well as infertility which is not anatomically related. This information is gleaned from the integration of the Classic TCM knowledge (qi stagnation and blood stasis) and modern Western analysis (inflammatory cytokines). Therefore, this proves that the Classics though of immense value, are only of partial value. The power of TCM is exponentially potentiated when integrated with Western medical findings. This is congruence of old and new and East meets West in medical information, analytics and treatment protocols.

When using acupuncture to treat endometriosis (which is essentially worthless without the inclusion of herbal medicine), one must not only invigorate the qi and blood with points such as Large Intestine 4 and Liver 3, but also, clear heat with the utilization of points such as liver 2, kidney 2, spleen 10, and liver 8. Herbal medicine must include herbs that move qi and invigorate blood, clear heat and resolve toxins. This new method of treatment will surely yield improved pregnancy outcomes when endometriosis is causative of infertility for reasons other than anatomical obstruction.

Find Out More

 

Couple grateful to Mike Berkley

My husband and I would like to encourage those on the long, hard road of infertility. We began our infertility journey in our mid 30's and tried many types of alternative treatment before moving on to western medical intervention. Our first IVF was successful and I was 39 when our daughter was born. We were working with a very respected, well-known reproductive endcrinologist in the midwest and wanted to do IVF a second time when I was 42. This physician told us WE WOULD NEVER CONCEIVE AGAIN and he would not do it. I did some research and found Dr. Berkley's clinic in NYC. We were planning the IVF attempt with another clinic that specializes in services for older women. We wanted to use Dr. Berkley during this process to increase our chances of a successful IVF outcome. We contacted him for the initial phone appointment and Dr. Berkley was wonderful!!!! He was warm, thorough, and took a lot of time. He was so knowledgeable. He encouraged us to call with questions/concerns and always replied quickly. This was quite a change from the other infertility specialists we had worked with -- we never would hear from the doctor unless we had a scheduled appointment. Dr. Berkley prescribed herbs that I took each day and we ordered them from a Chinese pharmacy in NYC. Dr. Berkley gave specific directions to a local acupuncturist for weekly treatments (she thought he was fabulous to work with). WE DID THIS FOR 3 MONTHS AND TO OUR GREAT SURPRISE AND DELIGHT I BECAME PREGNANT NATURALLY. We had a healthy baby boy in April of 2006. It is difficult to express the gratitude we feel toward Dr. Mike Berkley. We can't recommend him enough and words don't begin to express our appreciation. We tell many people about him so they can avoid more of the pitfalls of the infertility nightmare. Our only regret is that we haven't met Dr. Berkley in person -- we did this all over the phone and computer. It was not hard, complicated, invasive, or expensive compared to so many other treatments. Thanks Mike!!! We sincerely hope other people will use the Berkley services. Polly & Paul