Pregnancy Support
Congratulations you are pregnant!
Now is the time you want to do everything as naturally as possible while your body is busy with your growing precious baby.
Pregnancy acupuncture can help support and stabilize your pregnancy and provide natural treatment for any ailments along the way.
First Trimester
During your first trimester, acupuncture can help you with some of the following common ailments:
- Miscarriage prevention
- Morning sickness
- Spotting or abnormal discharge
- Feelings of anxiety, stress
- Fatigue
- Headache
- Sleep disturbance
- Bowel complaints
- Muscular pain
Second Trimester
The Second Trimester, usually termed the ‘easy trimester’ can sometimes present with problems that can get in the way of daily life such as:
- High blood pressure
- Heartburn
- Pelvic pain or instability
- Headaches Sinus
- Insomnia Anxiety
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Reflux Fatigue
Third Trimester
During the third trimester Acupuncture is used as a pre-birth treatment to prepare your body for labour and delivery.
Studies have shown that weekly acupuncture treatments from 37 weeks gestation can help prepare for natural and efficient labour with less medical intervention. (Betts, D (2004). “The Use of Acupuncture as a Routine Pre-birth Treatment”. The Journal of Chinese Medicine, 76:5-8.)
On a physical level acupuncture can help to soften the cervix and relax the muscles, tendons and ligaments, preparing your body to start labour at 40 weeks gestation. On an emotional level, acupuncture will address any anxieties or subconscious fear around the impending birth so that your labour and delivery will be more efficient.
Acupuncture can provide a gentle inducement to labour if you baby is overdue. Or in the few days prior to a medical induction, Acupuncture can help initiate labour or help to make the medical induction more effective.
The following are some common reasons women seek our pregnancy acupuncture in their third trimester:
- Breech presentation or malposition of your baby
- Pregnancy-induced hypertension
- Heartburn
- Oedema
- Pelvic pain or instability
- Headache Restless legs
- Haemorrhoids and varicose veins
- Birth preparation treatments such as Cervical Ripening
- Facilitating baby’s head engaging
- Natural Labour Induction
Post Natal Treatments
Now that your beautiful baby has arrived, I want you to think of the next three months as the ‘fourth trimester’.
This is the time to really rest up in order to recuperate all that was lost in terms of energy , Qi and blood, during labour and delivery. Its important to have some gentle exercise such as going for a short walk, sleeping as much as you can and eating nutrient rich warm foods that will nourish you back up to full health. Consider a taking a tonic or herbal medicine to get you back on track.
Conditions that can be treated after giving birth include:
- Mastitis
- Postnatal Depression
- Low energy
- Insufficient lactation
- Night sweats
- Afterpains
- Persistent uterine bleeding