Chiropractic and Infertility

A study published in the May 2003 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research, showed a strong link between the resolution of infertility and the initiation of chiropractic care. The study consisted of a retrospective review of 14 separate articles of 15 women suffering with infertility. In each of these cases chiropractic care was introduced and the results were documented and published.

The studies followed 15 female subjects ranging in age from 22 to 65. The prior pregnancy history of these women revealed 11 of them had never gotten pregnant. Two of the women had prior successful unassisted pregnancies. One woman had an assisted pregnancy, while 1 had a history of a miscarriage. In this group 9 women had previous treatment for infertility before starting chiropractic and 4 were actually undergoing infertility treatment when they started chiropractic care.

The study noted the huge expense of infertility treatment options currently used by many couples noting the range of expenses can easily go into the thousands. The article also noted that in vitro fertilization has shown evidence of long term risks. A study published in November 2002 in the online version of the American Journal of Human Genetics reported that “babies conceived by in vitro fertilization may be at increased risk for a rare genetic disorder that predisposes them to cancer”.

The chiropractic care rendered to the women listed in this study was from a variety of chiropractors using a variety of techniques. The focus of the care in these cases was correction of vertebral subluxations. The research article defined Subluxation by using the agreed definition of the Association of Chiropractic Colleges. Subluxation, as defined by the Association of Chiropractic Colleges, is a “complex of functional and / or structural and / or pathological articular changes that compromise neural integrity and may influence organ system function and general health". The study noted that all of the women in these studies, who were struggling with infertility, had evidence of nerve system interference, as detected by the presence of subluxations.

The results of these individual case studies showed that even though many of these women had tried unsuccessfully for some time to become pregnant, all of the women in this study eventually became pregnant somewhere between 2 months and 20 months of the onset of chiropractic care. One of the case studies was summed up by the author, Elizabeth Anderson-Peacock, DC, DICCP, "Although chiropractic care is not a treatment for infertility, it is postulated that improvement of spinal neural integrity through specific chiropractic adjustments may have contributed to improved homeostasis and physiological adaptation thus allowing the body to express a greater level of health as an outcome."