Acupuncture can assist you throughout your pregnancy as a natural therapy to help relieve pain, support your sleep and reduce stress. It is a valuable modality to help prepare your mind and body in the weeks leading up to birth and acupressure can support you during labour.
I would love to support you through your pregnancy. Reach out, give me a call to discuss your plans and how I might be able to help you.
Low back and pelvic pain
More than two-thirds of pregnant women experience low-back pain. Pain is typically located in the lower back, the sacro-iliac joints and the symphysis pubis, and makes it hard to carry out daily activities.
There is high quality evidence to support the use of acupuncture to effectively relieve pregnancy-related low back and pelvic pain (LBPP) (1) . The evidence indicates that acupuncture may be more effective than standard prenatal care and better than physiotherapy at relieving evening LBPP and related functional disability (1, 2, 3).
Acupuncture can be used for low back and pelvic pain throughout pregnancy and treatment twice per week over two to six weeks has been shown to be effective.
Preparing the mind and body for birth
Acupuncture can help you in the weeks leading up to your birth, and in the post-partum period, preparing the mind and body for natural labour or a planned caesarean.
Most women enjoy pre-birth acupuncture from 36 or 37 weeks, with treatments once per week, then twice per week from 39 weeks. They are beautiful treatments that support you being present with yourself and your baby before the birth, and facilitate shifts in your mind and body in the lead up to labour.
Reducing pain during labour
Acupressure can be used to help reduce pain during labour. The acupoints are simple to locate and I can show and demonstrate these points to you and your support person in the weeks leading up to birth.
There is evidence that indicates using acupuncture and acupressure during labour can help to reduce pain and reduce the need for analgesic medication (4). This can be helpful information for patients who would prefer to minimise pharmacological pain-relief.
(1) Liddle, S.D. & Pennick, V. 2015, ‘Interventions for preventing and treating low-back and pelvic pain during pregnancy’, Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group (ed.), Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CD001139.
(2) Elden, H., Ladfors, L., Olsen, M.F., Ostgaard, H.-C. & Hagberg, H. 2005, ‘Effects of acupuncture and stabilising exercises as adjunct to standard treatment in pregnant women with pelvic girdle pain: randomised single blind controlled trial’, BMJ, vol. 330, no. 7494, p. 761.
(3) Wedenberg, K., Moen, B. & Norling, A. 2000, ‘A prospective randomized study comparing acupuncture with physiotherapy for low-back and pelvic pain in pregnancy’, Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, vol. 79, no. 5, pp. 331–5.
(4) Ozgoli, G., Sedigh Mobarakabadi, S., Heshmat, R., Alavi Majd, H. & Sheikhan, Z. 2016, ‘Effect of LI4 and BL32 acupressure on labor pain and delivery outcome in the first stage of labor in primiparous women: A randomized controlled trial’, Complementary Therapies in Medicine, vol. 29, pp. 175–80.