Kristan Robinson lies on her back in a dark room with needles in her belly, feet, ankles, head and hands.

It's not the typical position for trying to get pregnant.

But she's one of a growing number of Charlotte women trying to conceive by combining the age-old healing technique of acupuncture with high-tech in vitro fertilization.

About two years ago, doctors with Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte began referring patients to acupuncturists Chuck Hipple and Jane Pearce to provide a fertility boost.

The doctors don't keep track of their success rates with IVF and acupuncture, but Hipple estimates 75 percent of patients who get combination therapy become pregnant.

Robinson, 33, a former sales representative, had been trying to get pregnant for more than two years. In November, she tried acupuncture along with IVF, a procedure that combined her eggs with her husband's sperm in a laboratory. The resulting embryos were transferred back to her uterus. Still, no pregnancy.

She and her husband, Todd, tried again in February. It worked, and their son is due Nov. 10.

"Combining Eastern and Western medicine just kind of helped everything work better," Kristan Robinson said.

Acupuncture, the practice of inserting thin needles into specific points in the body to improve health and well-being, originated in China more than 2,000 years ago.

It is based on the belief that life energy, or qi (pronounced chee), flows through the body along defined meridians, similar to rivers through the Earth. By stimulating certain points with needles, acupuncturists say qi can be made to flow where it is deficient and away from areas where it's excessive.

Many people try acupuncture to relieve pain, insomnia and allergies. It gained popularity as a fertility aid after the 2002 publication of a German study indicating acupuncture with IVF increased chances of pregnancy. The study of 160 women found 43 percent who had acupuncture before and after embryo transfer got pregnant, compared with 26 percent who did not have acupuncture.

The acupuncture-fertility connection also got a boost from television's "Sex and the City." One of the characters, Charlotte, got pregnant after trying both acupuncture and IVF.

This year, the journal Fertility and Sterility published three studies examining patients undergoing IVF. Two showed significantly higher pregnancy rates for patients who got both IVF and acupuncture. The third found no significant benefit.

"We're finding that more and more patients are asking about it," said Dr. Richard Wing, of Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte. "We don't really know how it works. But to the best of our knowledge, it's not harmful."

The average IVF success rate in the U.S. is 50 percent without acupuncture, Wing said. He believes adding acupuncture probably improves chances for conception.

Dr. Russell Greenfield, medical director of Carolinas Integrative Health in Charlotte, said acupuncture by itself can improve fertility by stimulating blood flow to reproductive organs and increasing the chances of normal ovulation.

"What's beautiful about acupuncture," Greenfield said, "is that it's a noninvasive method that trusts the wisdom of the body to operate properly."

Pulses of energy

Kristan Robinson started fertility treatments with Wing in summer 2004. She was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries, which result in irregular menstrual cycles and eggs of questionable quality. She had already started acupuncture.Each session, the acupuncturists touch Robinson's wrists to "feel her pulses" -- the energy flow through the 12 meridians that correspond with major organs, such as the liver and kidneys and spleen. Acupuncturists speak of "spleen deficiency," "liver qi stagnation" and "kidney essence deficiency."

Pearce likened pulse-taking to touching a garden hose to determine if the water is turned on or off, trickling or rushing.

"You can't see the water, but you can feel the pulse," Pearce said.

Hipple said he has been treating women for infertility since 1995, when he started practicing in Charlotte. Since January 2005, he said, his office has treated 73 IVF patients. Of the 52 he's kept track of, 40 became pregnant.

In addition to relaxing the body, Hipple said acupuncture makes fertility drugs work better. Part of the goal is to make the uterus more warm and welcoming by bringing more blood flow to the area.

"If it's 'cold,' it's not going to be inviting to a new being," Hipple said. "Acupuncture helps increase the effects of what Western medicine is doing."

Difficult to be sure

Some experts caution that science hasn't proven whether acupuncture improves fertility.

"Does it hurt? Probably not. Does it definitively help? I can't say," said Dr. Evan Myers, a Duke University obstetrician-gynecologist and epidemiologist. The problem, he said, is that most studies include only small numbers of women and haven't compared acupuncture with placebo so they can't show what exactly caused any improvement. "What's not proven is that acupuncture itself is doing what acupuncture is said to do," he said.

Before he could recommend routine use of acupuncture with IVF, Myers said, more study is needed.

"Anything that helps improve live birth rates with in vitro fertilization is great," Myers said. Acupuncture "would certainly be cheap compared to some of the alternatives."

Success stories

Other Charlotte women who have tried acupuncture say it helped them get pregnant.Donna Black, a Charlotte musician and teacher, gave birth to her son, Phillip Charles, in May 2000, when she was 41. The child's middle name is in honor of her acupuncturist, Hipple.

"The doctors said I wasn't going to get pregnant," said Black, who wasn't a candidate for IVF. "Then Chuck said, 'I've seen people like you, I've seen people worse than you, who got pregnant.' "

It took 15 months, but she got pregnant.

Marcia Hardin, 37, a Rock Hill chiropractor, has two children, ages 2 years and 9 months. She credits acupuncture with helping her get pregnant with the first in 2003.

She received acupuncture from several practitioners, including her husband, Harrell Hardin, and Michele Blitstein, both chiropractors trained in acupuncture, and Susan Wang, a Chinese acupuncturist.

After two IVF cycles, combined with acupuncture, she still wasn't pregnant. While continuing acupuncture, she consulted by phone with Randine Lewis, a Houston acupuncturist who has studied both Eastern and Western medicine.

Lewis, author of "The Infertility Cure," holds workshops nationwide. In Asheville in 2004, she told her audience that the Eastern view of health "has everything to do with balance and harmony."

"Everybody here has the capacity to reproduce herself when the underlying imbalance is corrected," she said.

Hardin said Lewis advised her to continue acupuncture and Chinese herbs and to add nutrition supplements. Meanwhile, Hardin and her husband also started the adoption process. That's when she got pregnant.

The stress connection

Kristan Robinson believes acupuncture helped by tempering her anger over not being able to get pregnant.

"There is a huge tie between stress and infertility," she said. "Everyone's always saying, 'Just relax and you'll get pregnant.' Good luck with that. If I heard it once I heard it a thousand times."

She has recommended acupuncture to three friends having fertility problems. And she'll resume it herself after the baby is born.

"I'm not quitting the practice," she said. "It's very powerful."

Infertility Facts

--An estimated 10 percent of reproductive-age couples in the United States have trouble conceiving.

--In Charlotte, acupuncture ranges from $40 to $100 for an hourlong treatment. Insurance usually does not cover the cost.

--The average cost of in vitro fertilization in the United States is $12,400 for one cycle. Insurance coverage varies depending upon the state.

--An estimated 500,000 U.S. children have been born as a result of in vitro fertilization since 1985.