Acupuncture in London for Fertility & IVF Support
- Chinese Medicine • Medical Knowledge • Individualised Care
Feng Chao MD, PhD
Medical training & surgery, Beijing • PhD in Medicine, University of Edinburgh
Working alongside GP surgeries and within private hospitals, with acupuncture practising privileges granted at The Lister Hospital/HCA in 2006.
About Feng Chao
Chinese medicine has been part of my life for as long as I can remember
I grew up in a medical family with roots in the Menghe medical tradition of Jiangsu, one of China's renowned schools of Chinese medicine, with a history spanning several centuries. Chinese medicine wasn't something I discovered later in life — it was simply part of growing up.
I still remember my first “patient”. I was 11.
My neighbour, Auntie Zhao, knew that I was always reading Chinese medical books and asked if I could help her constipation. I had to ask her to come back later while I checked my book to find out what to do.
When she returned, I used one acupuncture needle at Yanglao (SI6, 养老穴) on the back of her forearm. The next day she came back delighted: she had finally had a bowel movement.
So began my fascination with Chinese medicine.
That childhood curiosity eventually took me from working as a barefoot acupuncturist, to medical school and general surgery in Beijing, postgraduate surgical training in Edinburgh, a PhD in medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and more than three decades of private practice in Britain, including work alongside GP surgeries and within private hospitals.
Acupuncture in General Practice
Demonstrating acupuncture during a visit by William Hague to a GP surgery in South West London.
Two traditions, one patient
I have never thought of Chinese and Western medicine as opposites. To me, they are different branches of medicine looking at the same human being from different perspectives.
My Chinese medicine practice is not limited to one school of thought. I draw on traditional Chinese medical theory, including yin-yang, zang-fu and five-element relationships, together with the medical and scientific knowledge acquired throughout my career.
Modern medicine can look extraordinarily closely at an organ, a hormone, a cell or a gene. Chinese medicine encourages us to stand further back and look at patterns across the whole person.
I like to do both: zoom in and zoom out.
That is particularly important in fertility, where reproductive health rarely exists in isolation from the rest of a woman's or man's health.
Surgical Training in Edinburgh
During my postgraduate surgical training at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Fertility became personal
My interest in fertility became very personal when I conceived naturally at 43.
Pregnancy wasn't entirely straightforward, and on occasion I found myself becoming my own acupuncturist. There are some advantages, it seems, to having your acupuncturist available 24 hours a day.
My daughter arrived safely and changed my life.
That experience deepened an interest that has continued through many years of working with fertility patients — from people trying naturally to those undergoing IVF.
Becoming a Mother at 43
With my daughter — the experience that made fertility deeply personal to me.
I don't believe in treating every fertility patient with the same collection of acupuncture points. I want to understand the individual: their history, menstrual and reproductive health, investigations, general health and, where relevant, their IVF programme.
Chinese medicine gives me one way of seeing that person. My medical background gives me another.
After a lifetime spent learning from both, I still have the same curiosity that made an 11-year-old girl send her neighbour home while she hurried back to her Chinese medicine book.
I just have rather more books now.
Want to know the story behind the story?
My audiobook, Bound to Heal