If to get an acupuncture has been practiced in China for millennia, this therapeutic discipline struggles to impose itself in the US as a true complement to classical medicine. However, this specialty has multiple applications, among which is a good place for monitoring pregnancy. Between the small worries of the 1st trimester and the assistance to the delivery, acupuncture during pregnancy and delivery offers support to future mothers who let themselves be cared for.
Acupuncture, how does it work?
Through the application of micro-needles on strategic points of the human body, acupuncture seeks to restore energy flows altered by a physical imbalance (organic or psychic). Pregnancy is one of the women’s special transformations because, in this period of life, rich in hormonal upheavals, the body is prone to slow down or accelerate the flow of energy along the acupuncture path. It is for this reason that some pregnant women suffer from various pregnancy pains (nausea, vomiting, heavy legs …) and acupuncture proposes to relieve effectively.
When to use acupuncture?
Since this practice has no medical contraindications, it is, therefore, advisable to start the sessions as early as possible during pregnancy. Moreover, some women use it to get pregnant and increase their fertility. Indeed, acupuncture has largely demonstrated its effectiveness of action on the quality of the cervical mucus as well as on the lining of the uterine wall in which the fertilized egg must nest securely. In addition, it can sometimes be useful for promoting ovulation or regulating menstrual cycles. But in any case, the acupuncture consultation may be done at any stage of pregnancy.
What are the indications during pregnancy?
If expecting a child is synonymous with happiness, the nine months of pregnancy are not always easy – there are a lot of small hassles and pains the changes in the body can cause. During the first trimester of pregnancy, many women suffer from nausea and/or vomiting more or less. At this level, acupuncture is able to restore the meridians between the liver and gallbladder and between the stomach and spleen, so as to relieve these digestive disorders. The practitioner can also intervene in cases of water retention or heavy legs, two unpleasant manifestations that affect many mothers in the third trimester. It can also relieve back pain and sleep disorders that are very common during pregnancy.
Acupuncture in childbirth
Acupuncture is still very effective to prepare for the D-day since it can help with the position the baby is in the last days before delivery. It is also very useful in case of insufficient maturation of the cervix. Thus, acupuncture can influence the onset of labor by naturally promoting the occurrence of uterine contractions in the case of rupture of membranes without contraction. Beyond this, acupuncture reveals a real impact on the pain felt during childbirth by helping the baby to descend more quickly and reducing the pain caused by uterine contractions.
What happens during an acupuncture session?
According to the laws governing this ancestral method, the pregnancy follow-up does not last 9 months, but 10, that is to say, the months of pregnancy and the month following the birth. Ideally, acupuncture sessions should be scheduled every three months when the pregnancy is going well. These sessions are primarily preventive to anticipate potential problems. But in case of nausea or pain, the therapeutic consultations can be done at any time. After expressing her pregnancy pains, the patient settles comfortably so that the practitioner can insert the various needles at the points that he has determined are important, according to the symptoms. Of course, the fetus is in no risk since the needle is introduced in the upper layer of the epidermis only.
