When you’re trying to conceive but not getting pregnant it can be incredibly difficult to hear pregnancy announcements. You want to be happy but inside it can feel like a hundred tiny knives in your heart. Really, really tough. Some of the women who visit my clinic tell me that they feel under a near-constant state of siege – never quite knowing when the next emotional salvo will be fired. It’s exhausting. Picking up from yet another pregnancy announcement – made even more difficult when it appears that the pregnancy has been achieved effortlessly and quickly – can take a long, long time. This is just one of the many, many difficulties women who have infertility or sub-fertility face on a daily basis. We acupuncturists take the emotional side of infertility very seriously. We do this because we know how deeply people can hurt when they are not able to get pregnant easily and how this can affect, slowly but surely, all areas of their health, including their reproductive health. Coming for fertility acupuncture is as much an opportunity to off-load unhelpful emotions as it is to receive treatment. It’s just one of the many reasons why acupuncture can be so helpful on the (sometimes long) journey to parenthood.
So if you, or someone you know, is struggling to get pregnant, remember that your local acupuncturist has the tools and skills to look after your heart and mind as well as your body.