Our acupuncturist Julie Kelham shares how acupuncture treatment and online consultations during lockdown helped one client through to a successful birth

 

Case Study: Katie, age 32

Katie initially came for acupuncture in November 2017 to regulate her hormones and menstrual cycle. She was experiencing painful periods and irregular bleeding. Katie’s periods had been problematic on and off over the last 20 years. Regular acupuncture treatment was effective in regulating Katie’s cycle and helped reduce her period pain and she finished acupuncture treatment in 2018.

 

Regular acupuncture

Katie returned for acupuncture at the end of 2018 as she wanted to start trying for a baby in 2019, so our focus was on supporting this journey.

This involved appropriate personalised treatment taking into account the four energetically different weeks of Katie’s cycle.

Katie’s fertility was optimised through acupuncture treatment enhancing her egg quality and womb lining, warming her womb and supporting Katie’s ovulation and implantation.

 

Becoming pregnant

Katie became pregnant at the end of July 2019. I treated Katie throughout her pregnancy up to 36 weeks, supporting her energy reserves, relieving nausea, and later treating sciatica and lower back pain. When Katie was 36 weeks pregnant it was when the country went into the sudden lockdown due to the Covid 19 pandemic and the clinic had to close temporarily. I stayed in contact with Katie during the next few weeks and she was doing well and practising daily hypnobirthing meditation at home. I also referred her to some online resources.

Online consultation to help with birth

Katie contacted me to book in for an online consultation as she had gone over her due date by nine days and had some concerns about this. During the joint consultation we talked through these concerns and I gave tuition on points that Katie and her husband could use to help soften and dilate her cervix, relax the tendons in the pelvic area, provide pain relief and help her baby to move down the birth canal. I was also very mindful of how shock, fear and uncertainty following lockdown may have been having an energetic impact on the Heart and the Uterus channel thus impeding labour. I showed Katie additional points she could use to clear shock and to calm any panic or anxiety.

 

Successful homebirth

Katie and her husband continued stimulating the points the following day after our session and Katie went into labour in the early hours of the next day.

Guidance was given to Katie’s husband with appropriate points for different stages of her labour so he was able to offer her this invaluable support. Katie had a smooth, planned home birth and gave birth to a little girl on the afternoon of 23th April 2020!

It has been an absolute privilege for me to have been part of Katie’s journey and particularly to be able to offer this online support to them both during these challenging times. I was so delighted to hear that their daughter arrived safely. Katie has since been in touch to book in for an online consultation for post-natal care. A post-natal session can involve looking at diet, routine, any difficulties or concerns (such as problems with breastfeeding). Treatment will involve tuition on acupressure points and moxa treatment (a specific post-natal treatment called mother warming, which can be done at home under the guidance of the practitioner).

 

To find out more about the treatment and support our acupuncturists and Chinese herbalists can provide during your pregnancy and pre-birth, read our blog ‘Pregnancy and Pre-Birth Consultations’


Contact us about symptoms arising during your pregnancy

To book an e-consultation call 0117 377 1186

or email: info@almavalecentre.co.uk