I had the fortune of taking an excellent class with Claudia Citkovitz, the leading American researcher on the benefits of using acupuncture to expedite labor and delivery. She currently heads a large, ongoing study at Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn and is starting another one at Beth Israel in Manhattan.
The study at Lutheran Medical center entitled Effects of Acupuncture during labor and delivery in a U.S. hospital setting: a case-control pilot study, concluded that acupuncture can greatly reduce the number of cesarean sections (7% versus 20%) and 87% of the patients being treated with acupuncture reported improvement with treatment.
Acupuncture can be a greatly effective tool when labor has stalled or is failing to progress.
There are many reasons why this can be happening:
-the baby is in a less than optimal position (possibly posterior)
-mom is laboring on her back
-mom is shutting down due to feelings of stress, fear, etc.
There can also be constitutional issues that are affecting the way mom is laboring. In Traditional Chinese medicine these patterns could be:
-yin vacuity
-phlegm/dampness
-yang vacuity and/or
-liver qi stagnation
Specific acupuncture points can be used to help create a smooth labor pattern that has either failed to start or failed to progress. Points are also used to treat pain, headache, edema as well as constitutional issues that may be contributing to a stalled labor.
If a labor is moving smoothly than acupressure can be just as effective to help mom feel better through the contractions.
Debra Betts, a leading acupuncturist and midwife from New Zealand, has an excellent website that helps illustrate acupressure points for labor and delivery. Check it out.
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