Chiropractic – “A Beautiful Thing” for Pregnancy

by Dr. Shelley Adams
 

They say that pregnancy is a “beautiful thing.”   In my opinion it may be beautiful to watch from the outside but there is nothing beautiful about your head in a bucket, slowly busting out of all your clothes, varicose veins, stretch marks, constipation, heart burn, feeling that the smallest tasks are overwhelming, waking multiple time a night because of back pain, leg cramps or your full bladder and walking around like you are 90 years old. Who ever decided this was beautiful has clearly never been pregnant.

After two pregnancies I will say that Chiropractic for pregnant women IS a beautiful thing and I am fortunate to work in an office where I have access to care almost any day. Some days it seemed that the smallest adjustments made an incredible difference to both my discomfort and more importantly my attitude. Being in a career where you are expected to be “on” all the time is a challenge when you are in discomfort. Sometimes all I needed was 5 minutes of Trigenics and an adjustment to my pelvis and I could be “on” once again. 

At a time when your world as you know it, is constantly changing – chiropractic is there to help bring you back. Without question, having chiropractic during my pregnancies renewed my faith in the power of the adjustment.

During pregnancy, there are hundreds of thousands of innate processes that occur to transform an egg and a sperm into a little person.  Areas of restriction of the spine, or subluxations as we say in chiropractic, can create pressure on nerves that aid in specific processes right from conception to delivery.  By removing the areas of restriction we enhance the natural processes of the body and maximize the potential of the body to carry out these processes efficiently.

Chiropractic for Infertility

Although anecdotal, there are many reports of previously infertile couples who conceived after beginning chiropractic care. One theory is that chronic low grade back pain caused by torsion in the pelvis or restriction of the vertebra, can and will impair nerve function and limits the function of the smooth muscle that moves the egg down the fallopian tube to be presented for fertilization.

Chiropractic During Pregnancy

As the uterus expands to over 1000 times its size in an anterior direction, it changes the entire alignment of the body creating stress and strain at the base of the neck, the upper back and specifically in the low back.

Specific symptoms of pregnancy that chiropractic can help with are:

-Headaches

-Upper back pain

-Rib strain due to expansion of the rib cage

-Shortness of breath (by helping the ribs move more air can get in)

-Heartburn (decreases pressure)

-Decreased energy (I once got adjusted after spending an hour of my lunch lying on the carpet of my office wondering how I would make it thru the afternoon – I was shocked at the sudden change in my energy level and sailed thru the next 5 hours of patients! Gotta love that adjustment!!)

-Low back pain

-Sciatic pain down the leg

-Groin pain

-Carpal tunnel

-Plantar fascitis

-Nausea

At the end of the day, perhaps the most important reason to get checked throughout pregnancy is optimization of the nervous system as magically it creates YOUR little person.

Chiropractic and Improved Delivery Outcomes

Chiropractic plays two major roles in optimizing delivery.

1. decreases the chance of  breech presentation
2. decreases labour time

Just like the sperm knows where to find the egg, babies somehow know that head down is the ideal position for birthing.  Unfortunately, if the mother’s pelvis is torsioned ( i.e. one hip higher than the other and or rotated forward or backward) the womb in which the child lives is an oblique oval shape instead of a circle shape.  This configuration decreases the space the child has to move around and therefore increases the chance that the child may be breech. The Webster Technique is a protocol chiropractors use to help find the restriction in the pelvis and decrease tension in the round ligament.  This DOES NOT MANUALLY TURN the baby but rather increase the space in the uterus and is usually painless.  It sometimes needs to be repeated several times and can be performed right up to the due date.

Mothers under chiropractic care tend to have shorter labours because of increased function of the nerves sending messages to the muscles to contact and because there is mobility of the bones of the pelvis.  Anterior tilt of the pelvis due to the weight of the baby and or a baby carried mostly on one side of the womb, in conjunction with pre-existing pelvic joint misalignment can create fixation of the joints of the pelvis.  During labour these bones must separate to create a passage for the baby.  Inhibition of the process increases the chances the baby will get stuck.  This is called dystocia which can lead to fetal distress and interventions such as use of forceps, suction and last but not least, C-section.

Please be sure to pass this information to any pregnant woman you know.  Women need all the support they can get at this special time of their lives.  You just never know how much difference it may make.