Is it safe to acupuncture pregnant women? Have you regularly administered acupuncture for pregnant women?

This is a timely poll for me. My Gynecology professor who taught the section on obstetrics would never want us to need pregnant women in student clinic. Is it really a safety issue or just not appropriate for students to needle pregnant women?

Hi girl power,

Maybe it is the fact that you are or were a student then? Curious, would your teacher needle pregnant women. I have taken workshops for applying acupuncture in pregnancy and I feel confident to treat women during their pregnancy. And like anything, if you are competent and cautious it is safe.

"I will stick you where it counts"

I have treated loads of pregnant women with acupuncture over the years and had NOTHING but positive experiences. There seem to be a lot of overplayed taboos on the matter. I have gotten great results for many many pregnancy related problems - and they are all the more appreciated both by patients and their docs since meds can often not even be considered. I consider acupuncture to be THE premier therapeutic service for pregnant women. I don't understand why your GYN professor didn't want you to get the experience (presumably supervised!) so you would feel comfortable after you graduate.
Daniel Schulman
Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

We only work with reproductive health and obstetrics at Acubalance and so we see many pregnant women daily. And like Dan said, many do not want to consume anything orally and prefer acupuncture.

I remember hearing from one of the participants at Bob Flaws' Obstetric course that in China only experienced doctors treat pregnant women. So they put the fear of death into the junior doctors. Many are teachers in the west so they may explain why they are hesitant to treat pregnancy. I think Bob mentions that part of it is a translation issue. Many text say quickening blood is contra indicated but actually it says to quicken blood with caution and only when warranted. So if there is Blood stasis you need to quicken blood and transform stasis. Many of the herbs and pints are actually cautionary in pregnancy and not forbidden.

I think we as health professionals should make sure we are competent and and confident in treating our patient population. many of the BC programs could use more training in this area.

Check out the following courses to provide you with the appropriate knowledge to start treating obstetrics. I would do as many of them as you can before you start treating on women unless you are supervised by an experience acupuncturist. At Acubalance all practitioners are required to take all of these seminars as part of our agreement to join our team.

Debra Betts offers a series of seminars:
Acupuncture in Pregnancy & Childbirth
Forbidden Foods, Forbidden Points & Women in the History of Obstetrics
PreBirth Obstetric Acupuncture

Raven Lang, a midwife and Doctor of TCM, also has a series of seminars that teaches both acupuncture and herbs.

Bob Flaws offers a seminar that teaches how to really diagnose and use both herbs and acupuncture. This course really provides confidence about using forbidden points and herbs when appropriate.
Gestational and Birthing Diseases & Postpartum Diseases

Heather Bruce has a good section on pregnancy in her seminar. It is more geared to infertility but does have a few hours on obsterics.
The Role of Eight Extra Meridians in Women's Lives/Maternity

jane Lyttleton has a great module on threaten miscarriages in seminar called Jane Lyttleton on the Treatment of Infertility with TCM

Lorne, Dr. TCM, FABORM
www.acubalance.ca
www.prodseminars.com

Hi
Just like to add that apart from using it myself for the last 18 years or so I have been teaching midwifes for the past 10 years and they have also encountered no problems - the number of women they are treating is substantial, for example in an observation study we did on prebirth acupuncture, 14 midwives treated 169 women over 4 months – over 100 have now completed courses with me and I know 1000’s have done acupuncture courses in Germany……
I think it’s important that acupuncturists do claim obstetrics as part of there practice and promote its potential –otherwise midwives and physio’s will claim this as their speciality
Of course that also means that as a profession we ensure that we have the knowledge to safely treat women with our medicine, recognising that there are points that induce labour and recognising when we need to refer women who require western medical treatment.
We have a lot to offer it would be a pity if this potential was not fulfilled due to historical factors - the role of male acupuncturists in pregnancy and birthing in China, the herbal dominance in gynaecology, practitioners who complied forbidden point lists, with no rationale given…..

d betts
http://acupuncture.rhizome.net.nz

I am curious why some people feel its not safe?

Although I agree, if you dont feel comfortable, then dont. But DO send them to someone who does have some experience. Dont let them miss out.

Heather Bruce

Often it is just a matter of her feeling better - through caring listening, touch, massage and gentleness in a non invasive manner - thoughtful calming acupuncture (rather than just using a set of points in a book/research study) can allow everything to go back to normal and hence no eventual medical named conditions and dramas appearing.

This is not like treating a condition - but the person and how she is traveling. Not everyone is comfortable working like this - so sending out to someone who is attuned to pregnancy and the woman changes may be a great idea.

When writing my initial courses 27 years ago, I was coming from - more the question "is it safe to NOT treat some of the women who are pregnant – and apparently in trouble?" Having spent over three decades working with pregnancy and training others to do this better – I have NEVER seen anyone not enhanced by my administration of care in this way. Specifically a lot of early labours and imminent miscarriages stopped to go onto being normal and very healthy babies - when there is nothing biomedicine can do a lot of times, the thoughtful use of our medicine can appear miraculous - esp in troubled late pregnancy.

This is using a few guide lines, which I always teach though . . . .
The definitive booklet that I self published for teaching acupuncturists Obstetric Acupuncture 22 years ago is part of the DVD set available from Pro D. . . "The Role of Eight Extras in Women's Lives/Maternity".

When I was trained 32 years ago we were told that it wasn’t safe US doing it – as we needed more experience.

I suspect that this is the key.

I started out with Dr Van Buren’s list of forbidden points and a general awe and acceptance that whatever I did was for the highest good. Those trained less than 25 years ago - since TCM and the bilmedical valdiation appeared - may be a bit lost with the reasoning behind them though . . . . alchemy (where he was working from) seems to be too 'out there' these days . .

I had already personally experienced the whole pregnancy and birthing thing and went on, whilst designing and teaching all levels of acup courses to have another 3 other children, so it was all my life experience, that lead me to the very practically and different 'take' I bring to this subject - the university of life . .. .

Back when I started out, we learnt to treat the person, taking into account their unique energy and astrological signatures – and we had no idea such an animal as TCM was possible – ‘actions of points’ were years away . . . so there were no recipes, just follow life . . ..

My first pregnant woman was a heroin addict who had asthma – and I figured I could do no worse than she was for her baby. The next one was a friend whose pulse and tongue I was very conversant with – so armed with Julian Scott’s info – pub. first in the early ‘80’s – changes in pregnancy – increase in blood, damp, heat and liver energy and a decrease in kidney energy – I set to work ensuring that normal happened.

Closely followed was a work mate who looked like miscarrying - and after I got over the 'myth' that it was better being lost, she went on to carry a perfect son - although she had bed rest for months to do this in addition to treatment . ..

Little tweaks back to perfection is not the same as finding a named condition and then a recipe that tells you what needles to insert – (and where has moxa gone - invaluable in pregnancy/birth prep?) that style is not necessary in healthy pregnant women – if at all.

So calming the Shen – is what I always teach everyone to follow first – if we have a calm and peaceful spirit the energy follows – and if there has been all sorts of biomedical dramas inserted in her consciousness about all sorts of potential problems – if there is not adjustment back to normal – then it is easy to work with her – calm down the panic.

The majority of women I have treated over the past over 30 years when pregnant or trying to be just needed to sort out the stuff we don’t ask questions about – but that are running the show – her past sexual abuse and how it impacts on EVERY aspect of being who she is - is this EVER mentioned in gyne texts? Him being unfaithful, her scared of birthing after all the horror stories out there, her not wanting in-laws to stay after baby born, either having massive issues over the apparent sex of the baby - whatever is keying the subconscious up is the fuel to a lot of what we can be fooled is a biomedical named condition.

The undisclosed and ever present past sexual or emotional pain is often the driver of everything – these matters of the heart can be gently addressed through calming her and allowing nature to work its magic. If we do not they often go on to erupt as post natal depression/psychosis as being a new sleep deprived mum at home means not so much to distract self with . . ..

Often talking about these and how she feel IS the treatment - who else thinks to ask how she is going in the depths of her soul - and this is the 'causes of disease' we learn in first year - emotions and the blood has the Shen running around in it - so if we have STUCK blood - is it not also STUCK EMOTIONS AND THE RESULTANT DISTRESS on all levels that is her real issue - being pregnant can just bring it up to be addressed. Messy and not usually mentioned I know . .. so my question is then - is it safe to pretend this elephant is not there?

I am not suggesting a list of points that are published elsewhere – as we are all unique.

Our stories are also and so thus is what each of us needs at any given time – maybe after a prompt by looking at a book – at the very least have her wander out of the clinic calmer and feeling mothered herself - anything to get her to again have her qi and blood easily nourishing her Shen and thus her baby . ..