BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:

• There is increasing demand for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)
  • There are limited randomized trials on the use of CAM in pregnancy
  • Data on safety profiles of these practices during pregnancy are limited
• Moon et al. (BJOG, 2019) assessed the safety of acupuncture therapy (AT) during pregnancy

METHODS:

• Retrospective cohort study
• Setting
  • Korea
• Participants and data sources
  • Women with confirmed pregnancy between 2003 and 2012
  • Data derived from the 2002–13 Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) sample cohort
• Groups
  • Intervention group: Women who received AT during pregnancy
  • Control group: No AT therapy
• Study design
  • Other factors aside from analgesia were also extracted including age, rate of high-risk pregnancy, and multiple pregnancy
  • In the acupuncture group, the most frequent acupuncture diagnosis codes and the timing of treatment were also obtained
• Primary outcome
  • Incidence of full-term delivery, preterm delivery and stillbirth
    • Stratified by pregnancy duration and high-risk and multiple pregnancy groups

RESULTS:

• Data from 20,799 analyzed
  • AT group: 4.95%
  • Control group: 95.05%
  • No differences in age (most common cohort 30 to 39 years) and income level   
  • More women with multifetal pregnancies were in the control group (2.71% vs 0.97%)
• Preterm delivery: There was no significant difference between groups
  • Overall
    • Odds ratio (OR) 1.23 (95% CI, 0.98 to 1.54)
  • High-risk pregnancies
    • OR 1.09 (95% CI, 0.73 to 1.64
• Stillbirths
  • AT group: 0
  • Control group: 7 (0.035%)

CONCLUSION:

• The authors acknowledge limitations of this study, including retrospective study design and the difference in multifetal pregnancy between groups (multifetal pregnancy result in bias away from AT)
• There were no significant differences between groups for
  • Stillbirth
  • Preterm delivery  
• They conclude that acupuncture may be a safe practice in pregnancy that has not been shown to lead to preterm delivery or stillbirth  

Learn More – Primary Sources:

Safety of acupuncture during pregnancy: a retrospective cohort study in Korea

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