One of the things I love most about my job is working with women who are undergoing preconception care, fertility treatment and pregnancy support. So I was absolutely delighted to see this Cochrane Review come out recently in support of acupuncture for pelvic and lower back pain (LBP) in pregnancy. The authors concluded:
“Moderate-quality evidence suggested that acupuncture or exercise, tailored to the stage of pregnancy, significantly reduced evening pelvic pain or lumbo-pelvic pain more than usual care alone, acupuncture was significantly more effective than exercise for reducing evening pelvic pain.”
In my experience, pelvic and lower back pain associated with pregnancy is one of those conditions that frequently responds very well and extremely quickly to acupuncture treatment. However, everyone is unique and depending on the cause of the pain the prognosis may differ from this.
A well-trained acupuncturist with experience in pregnancy acupuncture will select acupuncture points in the local area, and on the legs, maybe the arms or even ears to reduce pains. The points used will be selected to be effective for the individual presentation of pain and low-risk based on the gestational age. The treatment is not only pain-relieving but also very relaxing – something every pregnant lady needs!
And if you want to see a a video of how amazing the whole sperm-meets-egg-pregnancy-baby process is then check this out.
For further information on Chinese Medicine contact Dr Sarah George (Acupuncture). Sarah is a practitioner of acupuncture (AHPRA registered), massage therapy and natural health at her Broadbeach clinic and is the Chinese Medicine Senior Lecturer at the Endeavour College of Natural Health Gold Coast campus.
