Winter & The Kidneys

The ancients understood that winter is a time of
contraction and introspection, a time to evaluate your actions from the previous year and meditate on changes that you would like to institute for the future. We still embrace this concept with new years resolutions.

Traditional Chinese dietary therapy is a great way to incorporate the enormous effects of the season into our personal lives and, like our lives, always keep evolving.

In Chinese Medicine, the winter is associated with:

* The KIDNEYS
* The OCEAN
* SALTY foods
* REPRODUCTION

When the KIDNEYS become out of balance people suffer from: Joint problems, Knee pain, Teeth problems, Back pain, Pre-mature graying, Reproductive imbalances, Pre-mature aging, Excessive fear or worry.

The following list of foods (from Paul Pitchford's book, Healing with Whole Foods) help address any KIDNEY weakness and should be eaten by everyone in the winter.

Foods should be cooked longer with less water and less heat. The theory is that concentrated foods will provide longer lasting energy on those cold and dark days.

* Soups (avoid raw foods)
* Molasses (source of iron, calcium, potassium and magnesium)
* Black Beans, Kidney Beans
* Seaweeds: kelp, wakame, hijiki
* Tuna, Sardines, Crab
* Root vegetables: turnips, sweet potato, parsnips, beets
* Ox Tail soup, Chicken soup-anything with marrow for the bones.
* Wheat germ
* Spirulina
* Pork
* Miso
* Soy sauce
* Black sesame seeds
* Millet, Buckwheat, Kasha, Barley
* Walnuts
* Asparagus

Acupuncture during labor

Acupuncture can be an excellent tool for inducing labor as well as facilitating labor once it commences. I once attended a birth that was a VBAC, meaning the mother was attempting to have a vaginal birth after a previous C-section. This particular woman got pregnant with her second baby three months after giving birth to her first via C-section.

After 12 hours of a somewhat erratic labor she took the epidural to get some rest. She slept for about 4 hours and pretty much got stuck at 7cm. The midwife felt like a vaginal birth was probably not going to be an option. Obviously disheartened and discouraged, I felt that she needed a change of energy. I began to needle the bottom of her foot at a point called Yong Quan, or Gushing Spring along with a point on her hand called He Gu, Union Valley.

I used Yong Quan, a point on the kidney meridian because I felt that she was experiencing a lot of fear about the possibility of another section and also because of the close proximity of her second birth to her first. In Chinese medicine, the Kidneys are responsible for sexual maturation, childbirth, the aging process and they are gravely affected by the emotion fear. (see my post on the Kidneys)

I needled this point along with the point in the hand and i watched as she began to experience contractions again. She was wondering if the epidural was wearing off? I continued for about a half and hour until i realized that she was progressing rapidly. I called the midwife in and low and behold she was at 9 1/2 cm. Pushing came naturally to the woman and a beautiful baby boy was delivered 20 minutes later.

I often recommend acupuncture when labor is stalled and I always recommend acupuncture for the weeks preceding birth (see pre-labor treatment). Acupuncture can help with pain relief but I find that women prefer to move about during contraction making acupressure a bit more realistic.

Other methods for stimulating labor are:
-nipple stimulation
-sexual stimulation
-physical exercise
-an enema