Pregnancy and Chiropractic
The health of your body, and all of it’s systems, is directly related to how your body can handle pregnancy, including optimal fetal development, labour, and the post-natal period. Chiropractic care in pregnancy is vital to the normal physiological function of both the mother and baby.
How can Chiropractic help me during my pregnancy?
Pregnant women under regular chiropractic care report a more comfortable pregnancy, including less low back and pelvic discomfort, less morning sickness, and less heartburn. There is also a significant decrease in labour time of 25% reduction in 1st births, 39% reduction in 2nd+ births. Women under regular chiropractic care experience fewer breech babies, fewer c-sections, and fewer interventions.
How does chiropractic care help?
- The intent of chiropractic care is to reduce interference to your vital nerve system, which controls and coordinates all of your systems and bodily functions.
- Specific adjustments also help prepare your body for an easier pregnancy and birth by creating balance and proper movement in the pelvis, including the nerves, joints, muscles, and ligaments.
- The adjustments help normalize tension in the ligaments that support the uterus – by doing so, can reduce tension on your uterus. This gives your baby more room to move and more ease assuming the head-down position for birth.
- Ensuring proper function in this way allows for a safer easier birth for the mother, and decreases the potential for interventions
How does Chiropractic care affect my infant?
- It removes interference to the mother’s nerve system allowing for optimal baby development
- It allows the baby the room to develop without restrictions to its forming cranium, spine and other skeletal structures
- It offers the baby the room to move into the best possible position for birth.
- With proper fetal positioning, there is a significant decrease in dystocia (difficulty during labour) and the resulting possible birth trauma caused by intervention.
Studies have shown:
80% of babies are born in births with enough trauma to create subluxations (structural interference to the nervous system), the presence of which adversely affects neurological development, breathing, digestion and immune function in the newborn. Subluxations can be corrected through chiropractic adjustments tailored to the delicate structures of a newborn baby.
How does chiropractic care help if my baby is breech?
Some chiropractors are specifically trained in the Webster Technique which is a specific adjustment protocol used when a baby is presenting breech (not in a head-down position). It involves a specific chiropractic adjustment and ligament contact that reduces interference to the nerve system, and balances out pelvic muscles and ligaments, which in turn can reduce tension in the woman’s uterus and allows the baby to get into the best possible position for birth. The technique is safe, gentle, and studies report a success rate as high as 97%.
Pregnancy and birth are natural processes. Chiropractic care supports these so that both can happen as nature designed.
For more information about the effectiveness of chiropractic care during pregnancy, please visit the website of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA) at www.icpa4kids.org
Dr. Amy Robinson
Family Chiropractor