Pregnancy
Several problems that occur during pregnancy can be helped.
Nausea and
early morning sickness, which can be so bad as to be disabling, will usually respond well to
nNEAP or to needle acupuncture. The effectiveness of this approach has been demonstrated for nausea and vomiting after operations (
Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2004,3:C0003281), and chemotherapy, and the same principles hold true for
early morning sickness of pregnancy.
Some acupuncture points should not be used during pregnancy and some types of manipulation are not appropriate, but back pain and sciatica can both be helped and relieved by careful osteopathy and acupuncture. "Acupuncture stimulation... may be a valuable treatment to ameliorate suffering in the condition of pelvic pain in late pregnancy" (Acta Obstetrica et Gynecologica 2006; 85:12-19).
An intriguing use of acupuncture techniques is to turn a breech baby the right way round. A trial published in Journal of the American Medical Association Nov11 1998:1580-1584, showed that burning a particular herb over an acupuncture point on the little toe caused the baby to turn the right way round in 75% of women. This can be done in a more modern way using nNEAP and a self treatment technique can be taught.
