Articles - children
Family Wellness First!
Chiropractic and Pregnancy: Greater Comfort and Safer Births
Dr.
Jeanne Ohm
How can chiropractic add comfort?
Chiropractic care in pregnancy
is an essential ingredient to your pre-natal care choices.
A large percent of all pregnant women experience back discomfort/
pain during pregnancy. This is due to the rapid growth of the
baby and an interference to your body's normal structural adaptations
to that growth.
Pre-existing unnoticed imbalances in your spine
and pelvis become overtaxed during these times. The added stresses
lead to discomfort and difficulty while performing routine,
daily activities.
Chiropractic care throughout pregnancy can
relieve and even prevent the common discomforts experienced
in pregnancy. Specific adjustments eliminate these stresses
in your spine, restore balance to your pelvis and result in
greater comfort and lifestyle improvements.
Comfort for your
baby, too.
As your baby develops, your uterus enlarges to accommodate
the rapid growth. So long as the pelvis is in a balanced
state, the ligaments connected to the uterus maintain an
equalized, supportive suspension for the uterus. If your
pelvis is out of balance in any way, these ligaments become
torqued and twisted. causing a condition known as constraint
to your uterus.
This constraint limits the space of the developing
baby. Any compromised position for the baby throughout pregnancy
will affect his or her optimal development. Conditions such
as torticollis occur because a baby's space was cramped in
utero.
If the woman's uterus is constrained as birth approaches,
the baby is prevented from getting into the best possible
position for birth.
Even if the baby is in the desirable head
down position, often times constraint to the uterus affects
the baby's head from moving into the ideal presentation for
delivery. The head may be slightly tilted off to one side or
even more traumatically, present in the posterior position.
Any baby position even slightly off during birth will slow
down labor, and add pain to both the mother and baby. Many
women have been told that their babies were too big, or labor "just slowed down" when
it was really the baby's presentation interfering with the
normal process and progression. Avoidable interventions are
implemented turing a natural process into an operative one.
Doctors
of Chiropractic work specifically with your pelvis throughout
pregnancy restoring a state of balance and creating an environment
for an easier safer delivery.
Preparing for a Safer Birth
Dystocia is defined as difficult labor and is something
every woman wants to avoid. In addition to the pain and exhaustion
caused by long, difficult labors, dystocia leads to multiple,
medical interventions which may be physically and emotionally
traumatic to both you and your baby.
Some of these interventions
are the administering of pitocin, the use of epidurals, painful
episiotomies, forceful pulling on the baby's fragile spine,
vacuum extraction, forceps and perhaps even c-sections. Each
of these procedures carry a high risk of injury to you, your
baby or both! However, all of these procedures used to hasten
the delivery process can be avoided if delivery goes more smoothly
to begin with.
When reviewing the obstetric texts, the reported
reasons for dystocia are caused by pelvic imbalance and its
resulting effects on your uterus and your baby's position.
Chiropractic
care throughout pregnancy restores balance to your pelvic muscles
and ligaments and therefore leads to safer and easier deliveries
for you and your baby. Additionally, the chiropractic adjustment
removes interference to the nervous system allowing your uterus
to function at its maximum potential. Published studies have
indicated that chiropractic care does in fact reduce labor
time.
In our office, we offer specific analysis and adjustments
for your special needs in pregnancy. You and your baby's
continued safety and comfort is primary in our care.
This pregnancy,
offer yourself the best! Include the many benefits chiropractic
offers in your prenatal care choices. Call for your individual
consultation. Give you and your baby the opportunity for a
more comfortable pregnancy and a safer, easier birth!
References
available on line at: www.icpa4kids.com/newsletter/references.html
Pregnancy
Matters
A recent USA Today article was titled Fewer
incisions at birth urged ; Episiotomy rates 'still way too
high'. Author Mary Elias reports, "Hunderds of thousands of U.S. women
get an "unkind cut" each year: needless and even
medically harmful incisions when they deliver babies."
Dr. Anne Weber an ob/gyn at the University of Pittsburgh
Medical School says, "the incisions are medically needed
in less than 10% of births." Incisions still occur in
as many as 31% of all deliveries.
Women subjected to episiotomies
are prone to more bleeding, experience a greater risk of
infection and suffer increased pain. The more serious outcome
is severe tissue tears leading to future bowel incontinence.
As many as one in five serious tears can lead to bowel incontinence.
Dr.
Jay Goldberg of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia describes
the tears resulting from episiotomies, "It's
like starting a tear in a bed sheet when you do the first
cut."