IVF has generated a rich set of patient-led traditions, from eating specific foods on transfer day to wearing lucky socks during the procedure. Some of these rituals trace back to traditional medicine systems, others spread through online fertility communities, and a few have attracted genuine scientific interest. Here’s what people actually do, where these traditions come from, and what the evidence says.
Transfer Day Food Rituals
If you spend any time in IVF forums, you’ll encounter three foods that come up constantly: McDonald’s french fries, pineapple core, and pomegranate juice. Each has a different origin story, and none has clinical evidence behind it.
The McDonald’s fries tradition calls for eating them on the drive home from your embryo transfer. The logic is that the high salt content helps your body absorb excess fluid, potentially reducing the risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. It’s a comforting ritual, but no study has ever tested whether salty fries affect fluid balance in a way that matters for implantation or hyperstimulation.
Pineapple is the most specific of the rituals: eat one ring of pineapple per day, including the tough core, for five days starting on transfer day. The idea centers on bromelain, a group of enzymes concentrated in the core that can reduce inflammation and break down scar tissue in lab and animal studies. The leap to helping an embryo implant in the uterine lining, though, has never been tested in humans. CCRM Fertility, a major fertility clinic network, has noted there are no studies on bromelain’s effect on implantation after IVF.
Pomegranate juice rounds out the trio. It’s rich in antioxidants, and the tradition holds that it thickens the uterine lining and improves egg quality. Again, no clinical trials support this specific use during IVF.
Lucky Socks and Keeping Warm
One of the most visible IVF traditions is wearing special socks, often brightly colored or embroidered with hopeful messages, to the embryo transfer. The roots go back to traditional Chinese medicine, which holds that a “cold uterus” can hinder conception. The idea is that cold feet pull blood flow away from the pelvis to warm your extremities, reducing circulation to the uterus at a critical moment.
Modern reproductive medicine doesn’t support this mechanism. Uterine blood flow is not meaningfully affected by whether your feet are warm or cold. But the tradition persists because it serves a different purpose entirely. For many people, slipping on a specific pair of socks creates a small ritual of hope and a sense of control during a process that often feels out of their hands. That psychological comfort is real, even if the socks themselves don’t change outcomes.
Bed Rest After Transfer
Lying still after an embryo transfer used to be standard medical advice. Many patients still treat it as a sacred rule, spending hours or even days barely moving. The evidence, however, has flipped.
A systematic review and meta-analysis published in JBRA Assisted Reproduction compared bed rest with early movement after transfer. Patients who got up and moved had a clinical pregnancy rate of 25.3%, compared with 18.7% in those prescribed bed rest. That difference, a 25% lower chance of clinical pregnancy with rest, was statistically significant. Live birth rates also trended in favor of early movement (52.5% versus 43.6%), though that particular comparison didn’t reach statistical significance. Patients on bed rest were also 1.9 times more likely to miscarry.
The takeaway is clear: there is no evidence to recommend bed rest after embryo transfer, and staying immobile may actually work against you. Getting up, walking around, and resuming light activity is the better-supported approach.
Hydration Traditions
Drinking large amounts of water after transfer is another common practice. The standard recommendation floating through fertility communities is more than 64 ounces per day in the days following transfer, with the reasoning that good hydration supports blood flow to the uterus. Staying well-hydrated is generally sound health advice, and adequate blood flow to the uterine lining does matter for implantation. But no study has isolated extra water intake as a factor in IVF success rates specifically.
Acupuncture Around Transfer Day
Acupuncture is probably the most studied tradition in IVF. Many patients book sessions in the days surrounding their embryo transfer, drawing on traditional Chinese medicine’s emphasis on energy flow and blood circulation to the reproductive organs.
A large meta-analysis published in Reproductive BioMedicine Online, covering 12 trials and over 2,200 women, found that acupuncture around the time of embryo transfer increased clinical pregnancy rates by about 32% and live birth rates by about 30% compared with no additional treatment. It also appeared to reduce miscarriage risk. The effect was strongest in women who had been through multiple IVF cycles or had low baseline pregnancy rates.
There’s an important caveat. When acupuncture was compared with sham acupuncture (needles placed in non-traditional locations), the advantage disappeared. This suggests the benefits may come from the relaxation experience, the ritual itself, or other non-specific effects rather than from the precise needle placement that traditional Chinese medicine prescribes. Some IVF clinics in China have also explored electroacupuncture during the stimulation phase to improve uterine blood flow, with early studies showing measurable increases in circulation after eight sessions.
The Mediterranean Diet Tradition
Eating a Mediterranean-style diet in the months before and during IVF has become a widely shared recommendation in fertility communities. Unlike most IVF food traditions, this one has a real evidence base, though results are mixed.
The strongest finding comes from a 2018 study of women under 35 in their first IVF cycle. Those with the highest adherence to a Mediterranean diet had a clinical pregnancy rate of 50%, compared with 29% for those with the lowest adherence. Their live birth rate was roughly 2.6 times higher. An earlier study found that couples eating a more Mediterranean pattern during IVF had about 40% higher odds of clinical pregnancy.
Not all studies agree, though. Two other well-designed studies found no significant link between Mediterranean diet scores and pregnancy or live birth rates. The pattern seems to matter most for younger women in their first cycle, and the benefits may diminish in older populations or those with other complicating factors. Still, a diet rich in vegetables, whole grains, fish, olive oil, and nuts is unlikely to cause harm and aligns with general health recommendations.
Brazil Nuts and Selenium
Eating a small number of Brazil nuts daily during an IVF cycle is another tradition with roots in nutritional science. Brazil nuts are the richest food source of selenium, a mineral involved in fertilization, embryo development, and protection against oxidative stress. Higher antioxidant levels in follicular fluid (the liquid surrounding eggs in the ovaries) correlate with better egg quality.
About one in seven people globally are selenium deficient, and deficiency is associated with unexplained infertility, higher miscarriage rates, and reduced sperm quality. The catch is that selenium supplementation doesn’t seem to help people who already have adequate levels. If your diet already includes sufficient selenium from seafood, meat, or eggs, adding Brazil nuts is unlikely to move the needle. For those who are deficient, though, the tradition has a plausible biological basis.
Religious and Cultural Views on IVF
Beyond patient rituals, IVF intersects with deep religious traditions about the creation of life, the status of embryos, and the boundaries of medical intervention.
Judaism broadly accepts IVF, though most Orthodox Jewish authorities refuse third-party involvement such as donor eggs or sperm. Spare embryos can be passively destroyed (by allowing them to thaw, for example), but actively destroying them or using them for research is not permitted.
Roman Catholicism considers IVF unacceptable in all its forms, viewing conception as something that should occur only through the conjugal act. The Eastern Orthodox Church holds a similar position, rejecting IVF, surrogacy, and embryo donation.
Protestantism and Anglicanism are more permissive. Both generally accept IVF, and the Anglican Church has recently accepted third-party gamete donation, though individual members may decline donor involvement based on personal conviction.
In Sunni Islam, IVF is permitted as long as the egg and sperm come from a married couple and the embryo is transferred to the wife’s uterus during an active marriage. Embryo freezing is allowed, but research on embryos is restricted to those younger than 120 days. Shi’a Islam diverges here, permitting gamete donation, which opens the door to donor eggs and sperm.
Hinduism and Buddhism accept nearly all forms of assisted reproduction. For families navigating IVF within a religious framework, these distinctions often shape which procedures they’re comfortable pursuing and what happens to any remaining embryos.