Is Chiropractic Care safe during pregnancy?

Chiropractic care during pregnancy is not only safe for the mom and fetus, but essential.  There are no contra-indications for Chiropractic care during pregnancy.  Chiropractor’s have specific training to help women who are pregnant.  Many even take it a step further and get a certification in helping women who are pregnant and children.

• DACCP – Diplomate with ICPA reflecting highest level of advanced training
• CACCP – Certified with the ICPA reflecting advanced training
• Webster Certified – trained to specifically work with breech positions

Why see a Chiropractor during pregnancy?

There are a lot of changes that go on in the body during pregnancy both structurally and biomechanically.  These changes in the body respond well to gentle chiropractic adjustments.  The changes that occur in the body during pregnancy include:

• Release of hormones, especially ‘Relaxin’ which causes muscles and ligaments to relax – allowing more joint movement
• Increased weight gain – increases stress on joints
• Change in weight distribution – causing changes in posture and biomechanics

Changes to the body’s structure and biomechanics often leads to fatigue and discomfort.  Also, these changes can lead to undo stress on the nervous system which is the master control center for maintaining the body.

What is the benefit of seeing a Chiropractor during pregnancy?

The potential benefits of getting your spine examined and adjusted by a Chiropractor include:

• Healthier Pregnancy
• Nausea Control
• Decreases Labor and Delivery Time
• Back, Neck and Joint Pain Relief
• C-Section Prevention

What can Chiropractic do about a breech presentation?

Many Chiropractor’s are trained in the “Webster Technique” which was developed by the founder of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA), Larry Webster, D.C..  This analysis and adjusting technique establishes a balance in the pregnant pelvis, reducing stress on the nervous system, the mom and the fetus.  The balancing of the pelvis and its connecting structures allows for the breech child to reposition naturally for a safer birthing process.

“The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics reported in the July/August 2002 issue an 82% success rate of babies turning vertex when doctors of chiropractic used the Webster Technique. Further, the results from the study suggest that it may be beneficial to perform the Webster Technique as soon as the 8th month of pregnancy when a woman has a breech presentation.”(1)

It is most beneficial for women to receive chiropractic care throughout pregnancy to maximize the benefits and results.  A balanced pelvis not only allows the baby a better delivery presentation for a safer birth, it also creates a decreased potential for C-Sections by reducing pelvic constraints due to misalignments.

(1)  Pregnancy and Chiropractic Care,  American Pregnancy Association

Hi Dr. Amy ~I’m curious as to what really is going on that has you so afraid of allowing women to have the birth of their choice. No matter what I, as a safe birth advocate and you as a safe birth advocate ~ yes, we both want birth to be safe ~ believe is actually the safest, the fact is that in America we were meant to have our rights to do what we choose to do with our bodies, ourselves, protected.

Pregnancy is simply one piece of healthcare and care involves nothing less than what is given to all others in all other health care fields regardless of gravity of the situation. I want to know why you feel a need to TELL women not to birth at home. I don’t TELL women not to birth in hospitals. I do what they ask of me: share what I know, point them to resources and let them choose for themselves.

Women who have been my birth clients have chosen from among hospital with OBs, hospital with MW/OB, free standing birth center with MW, homebirth with CPMs and Traditional Birth Attendants, homebirth with CNMs and unassisted childbirth. They made their own choices and collectively they represent a c/s rate right around 10% (the WHO guideline recommendations) and of the almost 90% vaginal birth rate a little over 80% of those were without drugs ~ pain medication ~ and only a few with augmentation.

The reasons for cesareans were breech and less than textbook labor patterns. I don’t believe everyone is either at your end of the “birth is not safe” spectrum or at my end of the “birth is safe” spectrum” rather I believe the greater majority is somewhere in the middle. Certainly statistics show that less than 10% of births take place at home. I wonder that such a small group with healthy birth outcomes would take up so much of your time.

I wish that you devoted the same amount of energy to asking careproviders to give all the facts about every procedure and protecting the right to make our own health care decisions. What exactly is it about homebirth that is so dangerous? I know I can pinpoint the abuse of oxytocin, the abuse of medical privileges in prescribing drugs off label and the untold risks of cesareans, such as putting your future children’s lives at risk, for specifics about medicalized birth that is dangerous.

I’m not alone in that aspect. There are doctors out there who agree these practices bear scrutiny and are unethical. They question America’s maternity health care system in whole. I really am very interested to know exactly what aspects of homebirth are dangerous in your opinion and why you feel a need to use fear to quell an individual’s right to explore and educate themselves, invade a person’s home, privacy, body and right to choose for themselves. I notice that most of what is posted between you and others on the internet is lost in rants.

I don’t need the stats. I can find stats myself and I fully understand anyone can interpret stats however they’d like. I’m interested in hearing what YOU KNOW about birth, your experience with birth.

As a matter of interest, in my case it wasn’t homebirth advocates who advised me to VBAC spontaneously, without medications and especially with my premature son.  My skilled homebirth midwives advised me to birth in a hospital with the underlying medical conditions I had.  It wasn’t the homebirth advocates that encouraged me to VBAC telling me I could do it and I would be fine.   It was two different obstetricians in two different hospitals.  It was obstetricians who weren’t just trained in VBAC and complications of birth, they were SKILLED.