Intro
Most people who come to us have already been trying for a while. Some have a diagnosis — PCOS, endometriosis, diminished ovarian reserve — and some have been told everything looks normal, which can be harder. Mother Nurture Wellness is a fertility-focused acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine practice in Culver City, working with patients across the Westside who want structured, conservative care alongside their medical treatment rather than instead of it.
How we approach fertility care
Care here starts with a long intake. We look at your cycle in detail — length, timing, flow, pain, spotting, luteal phase — alongside your labs, imaging, and any workup you've already had. That produces a working picture of what may be limiting conception in your particular case, which is what treatment is then built around.
Most treatment plans combine three things:
Acupuncture, scheduled around your cycle rather than at fixed weekly intervals
Chinese herbal medicine, prescribed individually and adjusted as your cycle changes
Nutritional and lifestyle guidance, focused on the specific factors relevant to you rather than a general wellness protocol
The practice is led by a Fellow of the Acupuncture and TCM Board of Reproductive Medicine (FABORM) — a reproductive-medicine credential held by a small number of practitioners nationally, requiring documented specialty training and a board examination. Fertility and the childbearing cycle are the practice's primary focus, not one service among many.
Who we work with
This practice is a fit if you're dealing with:
Difficulty conceiving, with or without a diagnosis
Unexplained infertility after a complete workup
PCOS/PMOS, irregular cycles, or absent ovulation
Endometriosis or adenomyosis
Diminished ovarian reserve or advanced maternal age
Recurrent pregnancy loss
Preparing for IUI, IVF, or an egg freezing cycle
Recovering from a failed cycle and deciding what's next
Painful, heavy, or irregular periods you want addressed before trying
Male factor concerns — we treat male patients as well
We also see patients through pregnancy and postpartum, so care doesn't stop at a positive test.
What to expect
First visit — 90 minutes, and it includes treatment: $395
Full history, cycle review, and any labs or records you bring, followed by an acupuncture treatment the same visit. You'll leave with a treatment plan, a herbal prescription if indicated, and a realistic sense of the timeline.
Follow-up visits — 60 minutes: $185 (discounted package rates available and listed below)
Frequency is usually weekly at the start, then adjusted to your cycle. Some phases warrant more frequent treatment; others don't.
Timeline
Egg and sperm development happens over roughly a three-month window, so a meaningful course of care is generally about three cycles before results are assessed. We'll tell you at the outset what we expect and when we'd reassess. If treatment isn't producing change on that schedule, we say so and discuss what should happen next — including referral back to your physician.
Discount package rates:
New Patient Prepaid Package Rates:
$900 (First visit $375+ 3 follow-up visits $175)
$1500 (First visit $345+ seven follow-up visits $165)
Existing patient prepaid package:
4 visits: $700 ($175)
8 Visits: $1320 ($165)
Acupuncture for embryo transfer: $725 ($725 for 2 same-day in-home visits- limited availability)
Frequently asked questions
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About three months is the usual recommendation, since that covers a full cycle of egg and sperm development. If you're already trying or already in a fertility protocol, starting now is still reasonable.
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Most patients describe a dull ache or heaviness rather than pain. The needles are roughly the width of a hair. Most people find treatment relaxing enough that they fall asleep.
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Not without coordination. We generally pause herbal formulas during stimulation cycles and after transfer, and anything ongoing is reviewed against your medication list. Tell us every medication and supplement you're taking at the first visit.
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Typically weekly at first, then timed to specific points in your cycle. A medicated cycle may involve more frequent visits over a short window.
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We are out of network. We provide a superbill on request that you can submit to your insurer for possible reimbursement. Acupuncture coverage varies widely between plans, so it's worth checking your benefits before your first visit.
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We reassess at about three cycles. If treatment isn't producing measurable change, we'll say so and talk about next steps rather than keep booking appointments.
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Yes. Sperm parameters respond to the same roughly 90-day development window, and male factor contributes to a substantial share of cases.
What the research does and doesn't support
We'd rather be accurate than persuasive about this, including about the limits.
Most of the widely cited negative trials tested a narrow intervention: one or two acupuncture sessions on the day of embryo transfer. That is not how specialist fertility acupuncture is practiced and it is not what happens here. Treating those results as a verdict on Chinese medicine is a dosing error — a single session, given at the end of a process, standing in for care designed to run over months.
When the fuller intervention is studied, the picture changes. A retrospective cohort of 1,231 IVF patients compared three groups: usual care, acupuncture on transfer day only, and whole-systems Chinese medicine — acupuncture, herbal medicine, dietary and lifestyle care delivered across multiple cycles. Live birth rates were 61.3% in the whole-systems group against 48.2% with usual care, roughly double the adjusted odds of live birth. Transfer-day acupuncture alone showed no such advantage. A separate body of work using a structured multi-session protocol beginning about four weeks before trigger reported higher pregnancy rates and lower miscarriage and ectopic rates than matched controls.
The caveat that belongs alongside that: these are observational cohorts, not randomized trials. Patients who choose several months of care differ from patients who don't, and that difference can't be fully adjusted away. A large replication in China found the benefit in frozen transfer cycles but not in fresh ones. Randomized trials of the full protocol are currently underway.
Our position: the defensible claim is not that acupuncture guarantees a pregnancy. It is that the studies finding no effect tested something other than what we do, and the studies of what we actually do are encouraging without yet being conclusive. That is precisely why care here is structured over about three cycles rather than sold by the session.
None of it substitutes for a fertility workup, and none of it treats a structural or severe male-factor problem that requires medical intervention.
Working with your medical team
Most of our patients are also working with a reproductive endocrinologist or OB-GYN. That's the arrangement this practice is built for.
We time treatment around your protocol rather than asking you to work around ours, and we adjust or pause herbal formulas during medicated cycles so nothing interferes with your medications. If you'd like us to communicate directly with your RE's office, we will. If you don't yet have a fertility workup and have been trying for six months or more, we'll tell you to get one — that conversation happens at the first visit.
Location
Mother Nurture Wellness
5855 Green Valley Circle, Suite 200 Culver City, CA 90230
310-598-5209
Parking on site. We regularly see patients from Baldwin Hills, View Park, Leimert Park, Ladera Heights, Mar Vista, Marina del Rey, Venice, Playa Vista, West LA, Santa Monica, and the South Bay — El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, and Hawthorne.
Book a fertility consultation in Culver City New patient visits are 90 minutes and include a full history, cycle review, an acupuncture treatment, and a written plan.