Perspectives of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners in the support and treatment of infertility

O'Reilly, Erin K.; Sevigny, Marika; Sabarre, Kelley-Anne; Phillips, Karen P.

doi:10.1186/1472-6882-14-394

Cited by 23 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…While many of these studies do show an improvement in mental health outcomes, the studies that do exist are of low quality and have high risks for bias. This lack of assessment is problematic because CAM practitioners promote the use of CAM as a holistic treatment to improve “emotional outcomes” and promote “healthy lifestyles” [ 19 ]. The evidence that exists generally focuses on improved measures of perceived stress and depression, rather than employing standardized scales assessing quality of life during fertility treatment (i.e FertiQoL).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for the use of complementary and alternative medicines during fertility treatment: a scoping review

Miner

Robins

Zhu

et al. 2018

BMC Complement Altern Med

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BackgroundComplementary and alternative medicines (CAM) are sometimes used by individuals who desire to improve the outcomes of their fertility treatment and/or mental health during fertility treatment. However, there is little comprehensive information available that analyzes various CAM methods across treatment outcomes and includes information that is published in languages other than English.MethodThis scoping review examines the evidence for 12 different CAM methods used to improve female and male fertility outcomes as well as their association with improving mental health outcomes during fertility treatment. Using predefined key words, online medical databases were searched for articles (n = 270). After exclusion criteria were applied, 148 articles were analyzed in terms of their level of evidence and the potential for methodological and author bias.ResultsSurveying the literature on a range of techniques, this scoping review finds a lack of high quality evidence that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) improves fertility or mental health outcomes for men or women. Acupuncture has the highest level of evidence for its use in improving male and female fertility outcomes although this evidence is inconclusive.ConclusionOverall, the quality of the evidence across CAM methods was poor not only because of the use of research designs that do not yield conclusive results, but also because results were contradictory. There is a need for more research using strong methods such as randomized controlled trials to determine the effectiveness of CAM in relation to fertility treatment, and to help physicians and patients make evidence-based decisions about CAM use during fertility treatment.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12906-018-2224-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for the use of complementary and alternative medicines during fertility treatment: a scoping review

Miner

Robins

Zhu

et al. 2018

BMC Complement Altern Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Therefore, many infertile couples seek complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) for infertility treatment ( Smith et al ., 2010 ; Frass et al ., 2012 ; Ghazeeri et al ., 2012 ; Bardaweel et al ., 2013 ; Read et al ., 2014 ; Hwang et al ., 2019 ) to improve their chances of having a child. The most common CAM methods for infertility treatments include religious healing, meditation, acupuncture, and herbal therapy ( O’Reilly et al ., 2014 ; Read et al ., 2014 ; Miner et al ., 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low semen quality and adverse histological changes in testes of adult male mice treated with bee venom (Apis mellifera)

2021

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Background: Male infertility has been on the rise since the past seven decades. Recently, in Libya, bee venom therapy (BVT) has become a popular method among alternative healthcare practitioners for treating male infertility. However, a literature search did not find any published studies that investigated the use of BVT for infertility treatment. Aim: To investigate the effect of bee venom on the male reproductive status through measurements of semen quality parameters and testicular histological changes in adult male mice. Methods: A total of 48 male mice were randomly divided into three experimental groups (which were subdivided into two subgroups with eight mice each) as follows: control, bee venom sting (BVS), and bee venom injection (BVI). The normal control subgroup mice were not subjected to any treatment, while the vehicle control subgroup mice were injected (i.p.) with 200 μl of 0.9% saline solution. In the BVS-treated subgroups, each mouse was stung by one live bee for five times (BVS-5) or seven times (BVS-7) every third day for 2 or 3 weeks. While each mouse in the BVI-treated subgroups received 23 μg/kg in a dose volume of 200 μl BVIs (i.p.) for five times (BVI-5) or seven times (BVI-7) every third day for 15 or 21 days. Results: The findings of this study showed that repeated bee venom treatment by sting or injection to adult male mice resulted in a significant decline in testosterone levels, sperm count, sperm motility, and a very significant increase in the percentage of abnormal sperm morphology; also, there were harmful testicular histological changes in the structural organization of seminiferous tubules and degenerative changes in the germinal epithelium compared to control group. Conclusion: The results of this study provide evidence for the low semen quality and adverse testicular histological changes in male mice treated with bee venom. Hence, there is a desperate need for educating alternative healthcare practitioners and infertile couples about the harmful effects of BVT on reproductive status.

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“…It has been speculated that infertile women use CAM frequently in addition to conventional therapy not only to increase the chances of conception, but also to alleviate psychological, clinical, and physical concerns arising from being infertile and under various clinical treatments [4, 6, 7, 12, 19]. Although there is little evidence to support this practice, current international research suggests that 29–96% of infertile women seek CAM in addition to conventional therapies [11–13, 19–26], and this raises the question of infertile women’s experiences in uptake of these modalities, as well as sociodemographic and psychological factors associated with CAM use.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complementary and alternative medicine use among infertile women attending infertility specialty clinics in South Korea: does perceived severity matter?

Hwang

Kim

et al. 2019

BMC Complement Altern Med

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BackgroundComplementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among infertile women is popular in many countries, including Korea. Previous research has repeatedly found more than half of infertile women surveyed use CAM therapies for fertility enhancement and overall well-being. However, there is currently little evidence to support this practice, and this raises the question of infertile women’s experiences in the uptake of those modalities and sociodemographic and psychological factors associated with CAM use. Thus, this study aims to explore the perceptions and experiences of infertile women with regard to their use of CAM in Korea.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted using data from 263 infertile women attending infertility specialty clinics in Seoul, Korea, in June 2012. The survey instrument included 47 questions on the use of CAM, demographic characteristics, health status, and infertility related factors such as duration and type of infertility, experience and satisfaction of conventional treatment, and self-perceived severity of infertility condition. Chi-square test and logistic regression were used for data analysis.ResultsAmong 286 respondents (response rate, 95.3%), a total of 263 women were included in the final analysis. 63.5% of respondents used one or more types of CAM modalities during infertility treatment. The utilization of CAM was associated with employment status, duration of infertility treatment, and self-perceived severity of the disease. The most commonly used CAM modalities were multivitamin and herbal medicine, and differences in types of CAM modalities used were found between the group with a higher rating of self-perceived disease severity and the lower perceived severity group.ConclusionsHigh prevalence of CAM use among infertile women was observed in Korea. Our findings support that infertile women’s own understanding of their illness and physical condition influences self-care behavior such as CAM use. This calls for an urgent need for further in-depth study of the clinical effects of popular CAM modalities among infertile women when used in conjunction with conventional treatment.

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Perspectives of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners in the support and treatment of infertility

Cited by 23 publications

References 44 publications

Evidence for the use of complementary and alternative medicines during fertility treatment: a scoping review

Evidence for the use of complementary and alternative medicines during fertility treatment: a scoping review

Low semen quality and adverse histological changes in testes of adult male mice treated with bee venom (Apis mellifera)

Complementary and alternative medicine use among infertile women attending infertility specialty clinics in South Korea: does perceived severity matter?

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