YOUR BODY, YOUR BABY
If you are pregnant, one of the best things you can do is set up an appointment for a chiropractic adjustment. Chiropractic adjustments provide so many benefits a pregnant woman needs: a flexible and balanced spine and pelvis, internal organs without postural stress and freedom from nerve stress. These are all essential for a healthy pregnancy and smooth delivery of the baby.
Along with better nutrients, exercise and avoiding drugs/alcohol/cigarettes, chiropractic adjustments should be an essential part a woman’s healthcare regimen during pregnancy.
What does a Doctor of Chiropractic do?
A pregnant woman needs to have her body as healthy as possible and as strong as possible, in order to handle the bumpy road of pregnancy and childbirth. Chiropractic adjustments will help ensure that all body systems, especially the reproductive organs which are vital for the healthy pregnancy, function properly. If there is any slight nerve interference to these systems the mother and developing fetus will be affected. Chiropractors should examine your spinal column for spinal distortions and the cause of nerve stress. These are known as vertebral subluxation. If a chiropractor finds subluxations in your body, the chiropractor will correct them with chiropractic spinal adjustments that are gentle for the pregnant mother.
Drugless Healthcare
Chiropractic is a drugless healthcare service/treatment for pregnant mothers. There is no such thing as a safe drug that will not harm the growing fetus. No drugs should be prescribed during pregnancy without weighing the maternal needed against the fetal damage. Antibodies, aspirin, alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, cocaine, and even cough syrup and cold and flu medications all have been linked to fetal damage and miscarriage.
What can Chiropractic Help?
Chiropractic has demonstrated that pregnancy is maintained, controls vomiting, deliver full-term infants with ease and produces healthier infants. Chiropractic also has had success in back pain premature contractions, and back labor.
Weight gain, compensating postural changes and hormonal-induced ligament laxity add to a woman’s predisposition towards pelvic misalignment during pregnancy. All lead to elevate low back pain and hip pain. Affecting quality of life and the outcome of the labor.
One of the major contributing factors in the outcome of labor is having a condition called dystocia. Specifically, it is defined by Jeanne Ohm, DC
ICPA Executive Coordinator:
1. Abnormalities of the explosive forces, either uterine forces insufficiently strong enough or inappropriately coordinated to efface and dilate cervix (uterine dysfunction), or inadequate voluntary muscle effort during the second stage of labor (Power)
2. Abnormalities of the maternal bony pelvis, that is the pelvic contraction.
3. Abnormalities of presentation, position, or development of the fetus.
When examined from a neuromuscular and biomechanical perspective, each of these may potentially cause dystocia which may be helped with specific chiropractic adjustments of the pregnant woman’s spine and pelvis throughout the pregnancy and in preparation for birth.
Medical Interventions
Most medical interventions, including C-sections, are used as a result of “failure to progress” or dystocia. The most common interventions practiced today are the use of Cytotec, Pitocin for induction or augmentation, the use of epidurals for pain relief, and restricted maternal positions during labor.
“In 2016, 32.2% of U.S. births were by C-section that is over a 50% increase in 20 years. As the rate of C-sections has risen, so has the rate of pregnancy-associated deaths. Current statistics show the rate of maternal morbidity is higher for cesarean as opposed to vaginal births.”
WEBSTER TECHNIQUE
Chiropractic has been able to help mother’s in which the baby isn’t positioned properly for birth. Webster technique was developed by Dr. Larry Websters and he has been very successful in reducing the effects of sacral subluxation and SI joint dysfunction. In so doing neuro-biomechanical function in the pelvis is improved.
Dr. Larry Webster, founder of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association discovered this adjustment as a safe means to restore proper pelvic balance and function. This specific sacral analysis can be used on all weight bearing individuals to determine S/I joint dysfunction/ sacral subluxation and is therefore applicable to the entire population.
The ICPA (International Chiropractic Pediatric Association) recognizes that in a theoretical and clinical framework of the Webster Technique in the care of pregnant women, sacral subluxation may contribute to difficult labor for the mother (i.e., dystocia). Dystocia is caused by inadequate uterine function, pelvic contraction, and baby mal-presentation. The correction of sacral subluxation may have a positive effect on all of these causes of dystocia.
In this clinical and theoretical framework, it is proposed that sacral misalignment may contribute to these three primary causes of dystocia via uterine nerve interference, pelvic misalignment and the tightening and torsion of specific pelvic muscles and ligaments. The resulting tense muscles and ligaments and their aberrant effect on the uterus may prevent the baby from comfortably assuming the best possible position for birth.To learn more, contact our Edina chiropractor today.
Summary:
Chiropractic alone is never the only solution but can make an easier pregnancy. Respectively, ease of pregnancy will also be influenced by dietary intake, sufficient exercise routine, sitting and sleeping postures, and the mother’s health condition. Some mothers will have to go to the hospital for C-sections. All need to be taken to account for the complex process of the pregnancy of neurological, hormonal, and structural changes of the mother. Does your pregnancy include Chiropractic adjustments?