Traditional acupuncture has been used for over 2,000 years to alleviate back pain in Eastern cultures. It is only in recent years here in the West that acupuncture has begun to feature more prominently in mainstream healthcare. The British Acupuncture Council (BAcC) views these guidelines as 'a rubber stamp on the positive work already being undertaken as well as an endorsement of the wealth of research evidence now available in this area'. In the UK acupuncture is becoming more widely recognized for it's effectiveness by western medicine and this is particularly so in the area of fertility. Increasingly fertility clinics are suggesting that their patients have acupuncture as an adjunct to assisted reproductive therapies. Though there is a growing body of scientific research into its uses, there is, however, little data that conforms to the usual Western medical standards of large scale, double-blind, randomised controlled trials on the human population and, as a result, its efficacy must still be considered to be largely unproven. All of the references made within this website to research into acupuncture need, therefore, to be seen in that context.
