Acupuncture in pregnancy can safely treat many common ailments, aches and pains.
Your pregnancy is progressing smoothly – you’re excited and feeling well. At your regular appointments with your midwife or doctor, they confirm that your baby is doing great too. You’re eating healthy (for two!) and moving your body in ways that feel good, maybe with yoga, swimming or walking. But so many of my doula clients ask me, “is there anything else I could be doing to prepare my body for birth?”
As your doula, I’m here to share with you the ways that complementary health care can improve your wellbeing during pregnancy, so you can be at your best for birth. One of the best that I know of is acupuncture. Full disclaimer – I’m such a fan of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine that I’m currently studying to become an acupuncturist myself. In large part, that’s because of how very beneficial I’ve seen it to be for so very many of my doula clients. And there is some good evidence to support it’s use in pregnancy as well.
Set up a complementary discovery call with me today to learn more about how I can connect you with my perinatal colleagues who are the top registered acupuncturists and TCM practitioners in your neighborhood. It’s just one of the many ways that my doula care can support you through your healthiest pregnancy, birth and postpartum period.
Acupuncture in pregnancy is a complement to the clinical care of your doctor or midwife – not a replacement. As always, you should alert your primary care provider to any concerning symptoms you may be experiencing during your pregnancy, to rule out the possibility of more serious conditions.
Here’s your week by week guide to how acupuncture can treat common pregnancy concerns.
Pre-conception
If you are consciously choosing to conceive, acupuncture can help you to be in your best possible reproductive health before you even get pregnant. While it’s not a stand-alone solution, many women who are using medical assistance to get pregnant use acupuncture as an adjunct to Western medical fertility treatment. Acupuncture may help:
- Regulate your menstrual cycle and improve ovulation
- Harmonize fertility hormones such as FSH, LH, prolactin and cortisol
- Improve blood flow to your reproductive system including your uterus and ovaries
- Reduce stress
Acupuncture for fertility is not just for moms either! Acupuncture may improve sperm count and motility in men, as well as benefiting their overall vitality. Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that the health of both parents at the time of conception has a lifelong impact on the wellbeing and constitution of your child.
Weeks 0-12 – Your First Trimester
Is it the nausea or the fatigue that are the most common first trimester complaint? What has your experience been? It’s probably a tie!
With the huge hormonal changes that your body is going through as soon as you conceive, nausea seems to come along for the ride. It can be a low-grade queasiness that just always there in the background – not only in the morning, despite being commonly known as “morning sickness“. Or it can be full on, leading to retching and/or vomiting. It can really put a crimp in your quality of life and even your ability to function day-to-day.
There’s solid evidence that acupuncture, as well as self-administered acupressure (stimulating the acupuncture points with a finger instead of inserting needles), provide as much or better relief than the standard medication (which is pretty much a combination of B6 and an antihistamine).
The good news is that pregnancy nausea subsides for most women as they move into their second trimester. But there’s no need to suffer until then! A registered acupuncturist can provide you with relief. As your doula, I can share the acupressure points with you, so that you can give yourself relief whenever you need it – contact me today to find out more about my doula services.
Acupuncture and acupressure are an evidence based remedy for nausea in pregnancy.
Weeks 13-28 – Your Second Trimester
As you move into your second trimester, you’re probably feeling a return of your energy and any morning sickness has passed. But as your baby takes up more space inside, they may be crowding out your digestive system. You might be experiencing heartburn. Acupuncture can be effective for pregnancy-related acid indigestion. For more of my tips for handling pregnancy heartburn, check out this blog post.
Pregnancy is often the very first time that many women experience hemorrhoids, due to the additional pressure on the pelvic floor. Topical creams and soothing pads can bring temporary soothing, but acupuncture often provides more lasting effects (and can help to completely resolve them in your postpartum time). I know what you’re worrying about! No – the acupuncture needles are not placed anywhere near the actual hemorrhoids, but along the energic channels and points that send qi to the anal areas. Your acupuncturist may recommend points that are along your limbs for example.
Weeks 29-35 – Moving into Your Third Trimester
As you begin your third trimester, your thoughts are probably turning towards the birth itself more and more. And your baby is starting to get themselves lined up for their big day too! By 36 weeks, your midwife or doctor will usually want to confirm that your baby has moved into a head-down, or vertex, position.
If they are still in a non-vertex – or breech – position, Traditional Chinese Medicine can be an option to encourage your baby to turn. Moxibustion is the traditional treatment for breech presenting babies. Moxa is a part of the mugwort herb, which is usually rolled into a stick like incense. The lit moxa stick is held about one inch from the mother’s baby toe (at the Bladder-67 point). This warms and activates the qi in the Bladder channel, and can facilitate the fetus turning head down.
Your acupuncturist can combine moxibustion along with needling for maximum effect. They can also show you how to self-administer the moxa at home.
Weeks 36-40 – You’re in the Homestretch!
May your pregnancy has been totally smooth sailing til now – no aches, no pains, no complaints. Hooray! If this is you, this is still a great time to introduce acupuncture into your birth preparations. 36 weeks is a perfect time to start regular acupuncture treatments to balance and prepare your body for birth. Just like in the pre-conception time, it can help to balance hormones, boost your energy, nourish your body and your baby with healthy blood, and keep your feeling relaxed.
If at any point you and your doctor or midwife agree that an induction of labour is best for you and your baby, acupuncture can support this too. As a doula with a decade of experience, this is where I have most often seen my clients benefit from acupuncture. Traditional Chinese Medicine has treatments that can stimulate or augment labour. For some of my clients, these treatments have been enough to put them into labour, often later the same day or night. It’s been my experience that clients that had a medical induction usually seem to have a smoother, more successful induction when acupuncture paves the way first. Sometimes one treatment is enough, sometimes a few rounds is needed to do the trick. I’m happy to refer my clients to the registered acupuncturists and TCM practitioners that I’ve seen my clients have the most successful treatments with – contact me today to find out more.
Your Baby is Here!
Congratulations! You’re learning new things about your sweet baby every day, as you find your groove as a new mother. During these early weeks and months of motherhood, your also recovering physically not just from the birth, but pregnancy as well (and perhaps a lengthy fertility journey, too).
In mainstream Western culture, we’ve kind of dropped the thread on just what newly postpartum women really need. We put most of our focus on the new baby, with visitors bringing cute stuffies and sleepers, and multiple follow up doctors visits to follow the baby’s growth and development. But moms rarely get the the deep nourishing they deserve and need at this time.
In my books, eastern medicine is unparalleled in its wisdom of how to replenish your deepest stores of energy after the childbearing year. A really great Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner can support your recovery with not just acupuncture but herbal remedies to ensure that you’re moving into motherhood strong, rather than running on fumes as you reach your baby’s first birthday, or your return to work, or your next pregnancy, or even your menopause further down the road.
My FAVE postpartum book!
Hands down my favourite book for the “fourth trimester” is The First Forty Days, by Heng Ou. She eloquently conveys the profound importance of our postpartum healing, from a traditional Chinese perspective – but she also gets to the essence of the traditional practices in a way that will allow you to plug them into your own modern life in tangible, relevant, practical ways. It’s a gorgeous book with beautiful photos and wonderful recipes that you’ll want to linger over while you enjoy skin-to-skin time with your babe. Did you know that my postpartum doula care includes meal prep for new families? I often prepare the recipes in this book for my postpartum doula clients.
Sources
Evidence Based Birth – Evidence on Acupuncture, Acupressure and Breast Stimulation
Cochrane Review – Moxibustion for turning a baby in breech position
The First Forty Days – The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother by Heng Ou