MIDIRS Essence > July 2010 > MIDIRS

Moxibustion to turn the breech baby – by Christine Grabowska

Originally posted on Jul 2010

The July/August issue of MIDIRS new monthly journal, Essentially MIDIRS, includes a paper written by Christine Grabowska, which intends to explore the role of moxibustion in turning a breech baby.

The paper will look at some of the properties of moxibustion and examine the research into how moxibustion works. It will go on to explore the trials that have been conducted to discover the effectiveness and safety of this procedure, as well as its acceptability to women. Finally, this paper will consider why moxibustion has not been introduced into routine maternity care as a preliminary treatment to external cephalic version (ECV).

Moxibustion forms part of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The practice is thought to be around 3000 years old, as Chinese hieroglyphs have been found of moxibustion on bones and tortoise shells (Kim 2001). A compacted roll of the herb artemisia vulgaris (mugwort) is burned over acupuncture points in order to warm the specific channel to which that acupuncture point relates, or to increase the energy to the channel. Mugwort is related to the chrysanthemum family (Lee et al 2007) but gives off a pungent smell when it is burned. The lit cigar like roll of mugwort (known as moxa in Japan) is held close to the skin until a temperature of around 44°C is reached (Pach et al 2009) and the woman begins to find the heat intolerable. The local effect causes hyperaemia and vasodilatation as the moxa roll emits a temperature of about 600°C (Pach et al 2009).

To subscribe to Essentially MIDIRS and access the full article, please visit www.midirs.org/em for details.

References

• Kim KY (2001). Moxibustion. Gale Encylopedia of Alternative Medicine. Available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2603/is_0005/ai_2603000532 [19.04.10]
  
  
• Lee JY, Lee MR, Kim JH et al (2007). Efficacy of moxibustion after rolling correction in dairy cows with abomasal displacement. The American Journal of Chinese Medicine. 35(1):63-7.
  
  
• Pach D, Brinkhaus B, Willich SN (2009). Moxa sticks: thermal properties and possible implications for clinical trials. Complementary Therapies in Medicine 17(4):243-6.

Christine Grabowska | Essentially MIDIRS | June 2010| Photo credit: © cienpies – Fotolia.com

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