Acupuncture & Pregnancy

Q: I am 8 weeks pregnant and, though I am thrilled, I am experiencing some difficult symptoms that make it hard to get through the day sometimes. I have heard that acupuncture can help with nausea and exhaustion from pregnancy, is that true?

A: This is one of my favorite populations to work with! Acupuncture can make a world of difference for many women experiencing pregnancy related symptoms. In fact, it is useful for much more than these two complaints, so after addressing your concerns directly, I will spend some time in our next issue looking at those.

I worked with pregnancy for many years before having a child of my own, and though I understood intellectually what was going on during pregnancy, it wasn’t until actually having the experience that I gained real insight into what women were talking about. I became so fascinated by the experience that I became a Childbirth Educator afterwards in order to gain a deeper and broader understanding from a medical perspective of the different stages of pregnancy, labor, birth and post-partum.

After working with women for 13 years as an acupuncturist specializing in gynecology, pregnancy, and fertility, it has been my experience that, in general, many pregnancies tend to reflect the menstrual history. By that I mean that if a woman has had a relatively easy time with periods, few to no PMS or other menstrual related symptoms, then she will likely have a fairly uneventful/unsymptomatic pregnancy. Sadly, we don’t hear about these often enough, though they do in fact happen! The flip side is women who have a history of PMS, cramps, nausea, headaches, bloating, fatigue, irritability, etc., with their periods will tend to find their pregnancies to be more symptomatic. With Chinese Medicine, we look at the history of those patterns, which help to inform us as to the constitutional strengths and weaknesses of the woman prior to pregnancy. These patterns are often exaggerated during times of stress, and pregnancy can be a stressful event for the body, with all of the physiological changes and demands placed on the body, in addition to the emotional and other challenges that can be present.

“Morning sickness” is an interesting symptom as it can present in many different ways depending upon the person and their strengths and weaknesses and their particular eating patterns. Only some experience nausea in the morning, others find it comes when they allow themselves to get hungry, others when they eat or smell certain things. The way we approach treating this is twofold: first we try to identify the overall pattern and educate the patient on how to manage it through diet, certain flavors or specific foods. Then we use acupuncture to correct the physiological imbalances that underlie the pattern. Depending upon the severity and intensity of the situation, this can require treatment for the duration of the period of nausea, but many people find that once they understand the issue and how to address it with foods and eating patterns, they are able to manage it much better by themself.

The fatigue and flat out exhaustion that many women complain of during pregnancy is common primarily during the first trimester when the body is working extremely hard to increase the blood volume by about 40%. When you think about this it makes sense that you would be tired! What I find to contributes to the problem, is that many women don’t make adjustments to support how hard their bodies are working. For some reason, we expect ourselves to be able to maintain the same schedule and meet the same demands during pregnancy that we were able to prior to pregnancy, when we may be operating with less energy. There are many individual reasons for this, but I do encourage women to make an effort to get more sleep, nap if possible, eat well, and remember that in the majority of cases it is temporary. The better you take care of yourself during this time, the better you will feel in general. With regards to treatment, again, the degree of fatigue you experience will reflect the pre-pregnancy constitutional patterns, and pregnancy will be a demand that will exaggerate that pre-existing weakness. Acupuncture is predominantly supportive at this point, but can often help to support the pregnancy as a whole.

The most ideal situation for most women would be to seek some treatment prior to pregnancy in order to smooth out the cycle, eliminate the symptoms associated with their periods, and position themselves to have a stronger and less symptomatic pregnancy. This does require some forethought, as it makes most sense not to wait until you are ready to conceive, but to give is 3-6 months, (or more depending on your situation) where the treatment is not pressured by the ticking of the biological clock or worries about conception.

In the next issue we will look at common usages for Chinese Medicine in the other trimesters. Should you have any questions regarding this or any other health complaint that you want answers to, please feel free to call us at 508-435-8184, or email us at: info@rootandbranchom.com.