Jennifer Welder is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist in Asheville, N.C. She is a graduate of Daoist Traditions and runs a private practice specializing in integrative fertility and emotional well-being. Her practice consists of fertility acupuncture and herbal medicine, as well as virtual integrative fertility consults and coaching. Jennifer is ABORM certified and passionate about helping women through all parts of their fertility journey, natural or assisted with IVF. For more information, visit https://jenniferwelder.com/.
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.