If you have a spine, you need a chiropractor, and you should be getting care whether you’re pregnant or not. However, the trigger that drives most moms into our practice is either they’re having a lot of back pain or their OB-GYN is scaring them and telling them that the baby’s not in the right position. Chiropractic care helps women to be as healthy as they can be during pregnancy. Having your spine checked by a chiropractor ensures that your pelvis is sitting correctly to allow optimum room for the baby to grow and move.
The one thing I would caution anyone, if you’re going to seek chiropractic care while you’re pregnant or for an infant or child, you want to find someone who’s certified by the ICPA, the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association, and you can find them at ICPA4Kids.com. You can actually plug in your zip code and find a chiropractor who’s certified in Webster Technique, prenatal and postnatal care. That is really the best indicator that they’ve done a little bit of extra training, and they’re more suited to see infants, children and expecting moms. There is a little bit of advanced training in order to learn how to work with the expecting mom, infants and children. I always recommend finding someone who is certified and has some experience in that.
We have been doing pediatric and maternity care for almost 20 years now, and I just find it so fun and so rewarding helping moms through these difficult times. We never take x-rays on an expecting mom, some moms get worried about that. Many of our patients who are expecting moms, have already been under care in our office and are usually wellness care patients and just continue with their care. There is a little bit of uptick in the amount of visits that they require as they gain weight and their center of gravity moves forward.
Some moms will seek out Webster Care, because they know that when we relax the round ligament and the utero sacral ligaments and we adjust the pelvis, that whole area is more relaxed and looser so the baby has more space and is a little bit more likely to turn and move around. Usually, moms visit us because they are nervous that the baby’s not in the right position, or they’re having enough back pain or pelvic pain or round ligament pain where they need some help and they know that they can’t take medications. Most moms will usually start showing up in our office somewhere around week 20.
Here are 10 ways chiropractic care helps pregnant women:
- Provides Health Benefits: The number one reason to see a chiropractor is pretty much for anyone with a spine. We always talk about how back pain and neck pain is what people tend to focus on with chiropractors, but we’re really more nerve system doctors. A well-functioning nerve system enables a mother easily to combat many of the hurdles of pregnancy. Often women just learn to accept that pregnancy discomfort such as nausea, heartburn, shortness of breath, constipation, hemorrhoids, the frequent urination, they think that that’s normal and they have to go through those. In fact, they don’t necessarily need to. There are a lot of things we can do with chiropractic naturally to help maintain the integrity of the spine with chiropractic adjustments, which can help alleviate the mid-back pain due to increased breast size. Sometimes women will associate shortness of breath and heartburn with those misalignments. Maintaining the lumbar spine, the lower back, the flexibility and the freeing of misalignments or what we call subluxations, can help with other unnecessary discomforts such as constipation, sciatica, lower back pain, pubic symphysis pain and pelvic pain. In addition to adjusting the spine and clearing out the nerve system, a maternity oriented chiropractor might talk to you about the importance of stretching, yoga, physical activities and all these other things. So, it’s really important to make sure that a mom is under care because when she has these aches and pains, she can’t really take any drugs, because she shares the bloodstream with that infant or the developing fetus. We can’t really do that, because then those chemicals affect the growth and development of all those rapidly dividing cells.
- Improves Hormonal Balances: Sometimes adjusting and balancing the nerve system helps with the hormonal balances.
- Ensures Proper Nerve Supply: Chiropractic care ensures proper nerve supply to the reproductive organs and optimizes uterine function.
- Regulates Menstrual Cycle: Chiropractic care promotes regularity of the menstrual cycle and that can even in some cases enhance fertility challenges. That’s one of the great benefits.
- Relieves Pain Naturally: But really, what moms are generally coming in for, that they’re more aware of, is the back pain, neck pain, sciatica, other spinal conditions, especially when they can’t take those medications. Even round ligament pain.
- Helps Shorten Delivery Time: The biggest benefit of Webster Care shows that when moms are under care, it shows for shorter delivery times and less back labor. So, the number three reason is shorter delivery times, less pain.
- Lessens Need for Interventions: Most importantly, is less need for interventions, particularly Pitocin, epidurals and C-sections. All the research shows that if we provide chiropractic care up and through delivery, there’s less need for interventions. So those are the things that we tend to look at in that realm.
- Decreases Incidence of Preeclampsia: When we look at chiropractic care, it shows that there’s a lot of research that there’s decreased incidence of preeclampsia, which is the high blood pressure with or without protein in the urine. Some moms will see changes in vision, flashing lights, see spots, be sensitive to light or they get headaches that don’t go away, nausea, constantly feeling sick and if they’re actually vomiting or dizzy, and preeclampsia can be pretty serious. So sometimes when we see signs of that, we’ll also refer back to the OB-GYN.
- Makes Breastfeeding Easier: More comfort while breastfeeding and greater production of breast milk.
- Lowers Incidence of Postpartum Depression: By balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve system, it keeps mom’s chemicals and her hormonal balance much more stable. Then you don’t have these wild swings in those hormones which can lead to depression.
Dr. Gregg D. Rubinstein, D.C., is a midtown Manhattan chiropractor with over 20 years of experience providing customized chiropractic treatment services to a wide range of clients in the Midtown Manhattan/West New York City area. Dr. Gregg Rubinstein and 57th Street Chiropractic can be reached at (917) 534-6484 and is located at 119 West 57th St. in New York, NY.
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