Introduction
According to Maciocia (1998, p. 691) infertility is defined as “…the inability to produce offspring in a woman who has been trying for two years, who has a normal sexual life and, of course, whose partner has normal reproductive function”. If a woman has never been pregnant and has been trying to fall pregnant for 2 or more years than this is considered primary infertility, if however a woman has previously been pregnant (even if she miscarried) and has been trying for 2 or more years than this is considered secondary infertility.
A woman’s optimal period of fertility is between 18 and 35 years of age, during this time there are between 1,000,000 (18 yr) and 100,000 (35 yr) follicles left in the woman’s ovaries (Annon., 2010). However, many factors can hinder or interfere with a woman’s ability to become pregnant, including endometriosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, absence of ovulation, etc.
Both Western medicine (WM) and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) recognise infertility as a gynaecological disorder, however, the methods of diagnosis and treatment are considerably different. IVF and assisted reproduction therapy (ART) are preferred choices of treatment in WM while in TCM, Chinese herbal medicine and/or Acupuncture are the treatments of choice.
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