What Are The Benefits Of Acupuncture During Pregnancy?

You’re excited about welcoming a new addition to your family, but your pregnancy symptoms have you at your wit’s end. For some women, pregnancy gets easier as time goes by. But for others, it’s just a brand new set of debilitating symptoms week after week. Pregnancy puts your body through some major physiological changes, so it’s normal to experience some symptoms. Once those symptoms start interfering with your life, though, it’s time to look to supportive therapies. No matter how mild or severe your pregnancy symptoms are, acupuncture can help. But what exactly are the benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy?

Acupuncture supports healthy hormone levels while also promoting optimal muscle function and reducing pain. Acupuncture has been used for centuries to reduce pregnancy symptoms, like morning sickness, and encourage a healthy delivery. 

Acupuncture helps control pregnancy symptoms

Pregnancy should be a special time for you, but pregnancy symptoms can make life miserable if they get out of hand. Morning sickness, heartburn, indigestion, ankle swelling, fatigue, and insomnia are just the tip of the iceberg. As your baby grows, these symptoms morph into lower back, pelvic and hip pain, and symptoms of sciatica. 

All of these symptoms can contribute to a growing sense of stress, and that’s really the number one benefit of acupuncture — it reduces stress and leaves you with a more positive frame of mind. Acupuncture triggers the release of endorphins, feel-good neurotransmitters that modulate your mood, reining in those pregnancy mood swings and making you feel better. 

Endorphins also raise your pain threshold. Acupuncture has the unique ability to release pent-up muscle tension. Not only that, but it also encourages muscles to function properly, thereby preventing more pain in the future. Better muscle function also means improved digestion, easing your nausea and other unpleasant gastric symptoms. 

Acupuncture doesn’t just address morning sickness, back, hip, and sciatica pain. But the increase in circulation means help for your ankle swelling, too. Plus, research shows that acupuncture improves sleep quality and duration, so you can finally catch some Z’s before the baby comes. 

Acupuncture prepares the body for delivery

Keeping your pregnancy symptoms in check is one thing, but preparing for delivery is another. You want to make sure your body is ready for childbirth to make sure your labor is as short and easy as possible. 

You may not think that acupuncture can do much to prepare your body for childbirth, but it can actually help in a variety of ways. As we touched on a minute ago, acupuncture supports healthy muscle function. Ensuring your muscles are working together, and working smoothly, will go a long way toward preparing your body for labor. 

But acupuncture also helps by ripening the cervix and releasing oxytocin during the final days of your third trimester. Acupuncture is so effective at assisting the body in the late stages of pregnancy that it can even be used to induce labor. 

Good pelvic muscle tone will help you throughout your pregnancy, and even after labor as your body expels the placenta. If you’ve struggled with incontinence in the final weeks of your pregnancy (which is completely normal, by the way), acupuncture can help you with that, too. Acupuncture is an excellent way to tone your pelvic floor and regain healthy bladder control as you recover.

Acupuncture helps keep your baby in the proper position

In an ideal scenario, as you near your due date, your baby rotates into the proper position for birth — head down toward the cervix. But it doesn’t always happen this way. Sometimes, the baby is reluctant to turn. Sometimes the baby was turned the right way before getting turned around. These things happen. 

How exactly does your baby get into position, anyway? Well, during pregnancy, the uterus produces small contractions that help turn the baby into the correct position. In some cases, as in breech births, the babies don’t get the message, so to speak, and remain with their bottoms facing the cervix, which isn’t ideal.

Acupuncture is an effective method for turning babies into the correct position before birth. When used in combination with moxibustion, a therapy that involves burning mugwort near the skin to stimulate certain trigger points, acupuncture has been used to successfully turn breech-positioned babies before delivery. Pretty impressive, huh?

Acupuncture can assist you in your postpartum recovery

Your pregnancy symptoms may not stop the minute you give birth. Postpartum symptoms can be just as challenging as the ones you faced during your first trimester. We advise new moms to continue routine acupuncture treatments to help them cope with the stress of caring for a newborn and rebalance their hormones.

Remember, acupuncture releases endorphins. It also has a modulating effect on your brain chemistry, and your hormones, which makes it a wonderful therapy for postpartum depression. The “baby blues” can hit you hard after birth. Mood swings and bouts of weepiness are normal after pregnancy, but acupuncture can make it easier to manage your emotions and get back to feeling normal.

It’s important to be patient with yourself and gentle with your body during postpartum care. In addition to acupuncture, we also advise our clients to engage in “Zuo Yue Zi”, or the one-month sitting. During this time, we advise new moms to reduce stress as much as possible and to focus on sleep, rest, and good nutrition.

The one-month sitting is a time to bond with your new baby as you allow your body to recover. In addition to acupuncture, certain herbs can be used to help you cope with your postpartum symptoms. Please note, however, that herbs can be very potent. Never take medicinal herbs unless directed by a licensed herbalist. Otherwise, you may risk developing even worse symptoms. 

Contact us today to get started

There are many benefits to using acupuncture during pregnancy. It can help make you feel better on a physical and mental level, and it gently prepares your body for ushering your baby into the world.

If you’d like to learn more about how acupuncture can help you throughout your pregnancy, get in contact with us today. 

At Integrative Healing Arts, we’re happy to work with each of our clients to come up with a customized plan that suits their schedule and needs. No matter where you are in your pregnancy, we’ll be here to help you through it.