MIDIRS Essence > June 2010 > MIDIRS

NEW MIDIRS podcast! Acupuncture in pregnancy

Originally posted on Jun 2010

Although obstetric acupuncture tends not to be available on the NHS, for the last two years Katherine Allen, a midwife acupuncturist, and George Cooper, a Bristol based acupuncturist, have collaborated to provide affordable acupuncture for pregnant and postnatal women and their babies in the Bristol area.

In their recently recorded podcast, Katherine and George talk in-depth about the use of acupuncture for this client group.

Acupuncture is a powerful, drug-free therapy well suited to pregnancy. It has a high degree of patient satisfaction, and an increasing body of evidence supporting efficacy for a range of common obstetric complaints. As a medical technique, it has developed over at least the last 4000 years. The earliest major obstetric texts come from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Today there are numerous obstetric texts that combine with Western medical developments, many of which have been translated into English.

In Britain, the various forms of acupuncture practiced include Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Medical Acupuncture and Five Element Acupuncture. At their clinic George and Katherine use TCM acupuncture, a form of traditional medicine commonplace in modern day China. TCM represents about 8% of all the medicine used in the world today.

The philosophies of TCM and Western biomedicine are quite different. TCM assesses the patient as a whole, using diagnostic methods such as tongue and pulse diagnosis to build up a picture of the patient’s imbalances. The diagnosis is then used to inform the combination of acupuncture points used in a treatment, whilst the same diagnosis is the basis for dietary, herbal, exercise and massage advice, self-applied or otherwise. Acupuncture needles are very fine and are usually left in the body for around 20 minutes.

Common pregnancy conditions which may be effectively treated include morning sickness, backache, insomnia, haemorrhoids and exhaustion. Treatment of pelvic girdle pain with acupuncture can be particularly effective in just a few sessions, a condition which conventional obstetric care can often offer very little.

There is also growing interest and supporting evidence for the use of moxibustion to encourage babies in the breech position to spontaneously turn to a cephalic presentation, to avoid an elective caesarean section. Moxibustion involves heating an acupuncture point at the corner of the little toe (Bl 67) twice a day for 7-10 days.

Acupuncture may be safely used in pregnancy, although it is important to avoid contraindicated acupuncture points and point combinations that may induce the onset of labour, or anatomically speaking may pose a risk to the baby or mother. It is our policy not to perform ‘social induction’ with acupuncture, rather we aim to assist a woman for healthy natural birth through the management of anxiety, softening and dilation of the cervix, optimal fetal positioning and any other specific issues that may arise. Katherine’s extensive midwifery experience means that we thoroughly investigate the presence of red flags and have a low threshold for referral to their named lead professional.

In the postnatal period we have treated a wide range of issues including mastitis, insufficient lactation, postnatal depression, anxiety, back and pubic pain and exhaustion. We can combine the acupuncture with dietary advice and supplementation to comprehensively address these issues. Once again, we always refer when necessary.

Similarly, babies have benefited greatly from treatment of common conditions such as colic, vomiting, poor sleep, teething and eczema. It would be good to see the expansion of awareness of the benefits that acupuncture treatment can bring.

Our website is www.bpaba.co.uk. To access this and other MIDIRS podcasts visit www.midirs.org/podcast.

Katherine Allen | Midwife Acupuncturist | Photo credit: © Yanik Chauvin - Fotolia.com

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