Do you believe that eating curries when you’re 38+ pregnant would help induce labour? ABC 7:30 this morning discussed various ways people have found to be helpful to induce labour. Some examples include eating curries, drinking spirits, cervix stimulation, and shiatsu. The speaker singled out acupuncture that it may be an option more plausible than other old wives’ tales. Many women seek alternative ways of labour induction so they can avoid medical induction which tends to be more intense and painful.
What Does Research Say?
Research from Norway stressed the potential of using acupuncture in labour. They concluded that true acupuncture not only reduced the amount of labour pain but also delivery time compared to the controls who received sham acupuncture, according to Debra Betts in her book “Acupuncture in Pregnancy & Childbirth”, P. 182.
Cochrane researchers concluded that acupuncture may promote a more favourable state of the cervix. See http://www.cochrane.org/CD002962/PREG_acupuncture-or-acupressure-induction-labour.
More research is required to prove its effectiveness. However, that doesn’t stop women from getting acupuncture for labour induction for centuries. Can it be just placebo?
What Do Women Say?
I always make it upfront that there is no guarantee that acupuncture will induce labour all the time. There are simply too many factors involved, such as, the position of the foetus, where the umbilical cord is, the well-being of the foetus and of the mother. However, during acupuncture most women feel intense labour-like sensation in the lower back, the lower abdomen or the pelvic floor. Many women feel foetal movement in the abdomen during the treatment. Has any woman ever given birth on my acupuncture table? No, that hasn’t happened, thankfully. Labour often happens around the 2 day mark after the acupuncture session, although for some women it would take multiple sessions over one to two weeks of acupuncture stimulation. For other women, medical induction had to happen in the end because of a restricted timeframe. The most important thing, really, is the safe delivery and well-being of both mother and child. Sometimes medical intervention is for the best. We just try everything we think may help.
How Does Acupuncture Work?
Acupuncture is the insertion of fine needles into selected points on meridians which run all over the body in their specific areas. The impact on the body can be increased flood flow, stimulation of the nervous system and relaxation. Exactly how the needle stimulation may lead to cervix ripening and labour contractions is not fully understood. However, this doesn’t stop acupuncture for being used in obstetrics (conception, pregnancy and childbirth) for centuries. See https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-acupuncture-to-induce-labor/. Labour induction is only one of the many topics of interest.
Is modern scientific research ever going to catch up with traditional medicine used for the past 3000 years? Maybe unlikely in my opinion. So then would the lack of scientific evidence invalidate age old clinical evidence? Of course not. Would you try a treatment just because there is scientific evidence for it? Or because it works? I chose the latter because I cared more about getting better than what research says. Wouldn’t you?
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