A Short Overview of Acupuncture & Pregnancy

By Jeda Boughton


In North America, as our understanding has increased, views about the use acupuncture have significantly changed. Now, midwives are calling on acupuncturists to assist with tricky pregnancies, acupuncturists are working next to obstetricians in delivery rooms helping ladies with labour, and family physicians refer to acupuncturists to help with post partum care.

Today's reality is reminiscent of one story shared by an instructor at a seminar on pregnancy and acupuncture. Years back when he initially began practicing, doctors and nurses weren't certain how to integrate his work with theirs. One day, he was called into the delivery room to help with a tricky labour both mother and baby were in trouble. Their heart rates were up and the labour wasn't progressing. My instructor made use of a few well established acupuncture points and immediately the monitors showed both the baby and mother's heart rates return to standard. The medical team was surprised. It was instances like this that helped legitimize acupuncture to the Western medical establishment. Today, Jean Levesque works with a team of over 20 acupuncturists who specialize in pregnancy in the province of Quebec. His team has helped hundreds of women through the birthing process.

For me, it's been an amazing opportunity to learn from sage healers like Jean Levesque, Bob Flaws, Debra Betts, and Raven Lang who've been treating labour and pregnancy with acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for years and years. It wasn't easy for them - pioneers of TCM and acupuncture in the West - to pave the way for practitioners such as me. It used to be that for someone to learn acupuncture and TCM, and to learn it well, they initially had to be told how to read and speak Mandarin. This is not the case today. These doctors have translated information and made it viable for the new generation to also become proficient doctors of TCM.

I've been practising TCM for six years and have witnessed a fantastic increase in interest in acupuncture. Working with ladies before, during, and after pregnancy is a big and growing part of my practice. Less are the days when I'm asked "Once I am pregnant, is it safe for me to continue with the acupuncture?" My answer remains, "Absolutely, and your body would like if you did."

In no way has acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine become "mainstream". Nonetheless with family physicians and reproductive specialists referring clients and patients for acupuncture, I'm assured that Western medicine is moving in that way.




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