Inclusion criteria
The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) RCTs that evaluated the
IVF’s effects for women; (2) articles were published in English or
Chinese; (3) pregnant data could be directly extracted or calculated
from the original article; (4) any type of acupuncture was accepted,
including traditional acupuncture (TA), electrical acupuncture (EA),
warm acupuncture (WA), auricular acupuncture (AA), laser acupuncture
(LA), transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) and others.
However, if there were one or above treatments together with acupuncture
in treatment group, the other treatments between intervention and
control group should be the same. No treatment, sham or placebo
acupuncture, active control including Western medicines, dietary
supplements or lifestyle interventions were all allowed.
If the study was reported in duplication, the version firstly published
or provided more detailed information was included. Studies with male
factor infertility, review articles, animal studies, abstracts and case
reports were excluded.