Being an acupuncturist isn't always about helping people in pain or supporting their medical condition. To my delight, it's also often about helping couples get pregnant, and then later down the line helping them have a safe delivery. 

My lovely patient (let's call her Joy) came to me in February this year because she had a recent miscarriage and needed support going through another IVF cycle. She was naturally anxious about getting pregnant again and wanted to do as much as possible to prevent another miscarriage.

I saw her in clinic from February to April, at first nourishing her body and calming the mind in preparation for IVF. Then after she became pregnant, the treatment was about "holding" the foetus to prevent miscarriage.

For the past few weeks, she returned to clinic for help preparing her body for labour. This past week, the treatment changed yet again, this time to encourage the baby to "descend" now that she is approaching the 40-week mark.

As I go through my patient notes at the end of the week, I am struck once again by the wonderful gift of Chinese medicine to help support women through their fertility journey and with their pregnancy, done in a safe and non-pharmaceutical manner. 

Most days I go to work thankful that I earn my living by practicing acupuncture. But on some days like yesterday, when a pregnant patient presented with her baby in breech position, I am even more grateful at this effective and safe form of medicine.
 
The Chinese medicine answer to turning babies who are not in a head-down position (the best position for labour) does not even involve the insertion of needles. Instead we burn a moxa stick – made from the leaves of the Artemisia argyi (or Chinese mugwort) plant – and use it to warm up a point near the mum’s smallest toe. The warming action of the moxa stick reinvigorates the womb and encourages the baby to move into the best possible position for birth. Research* shows that this protocol is successful for turning 75.4% of babies in the moxibustion group (compared with 47.7% of babies in the control group).
 
It is also a much less expensive and less invasive way of moving the baby. The alternative is something called external cephalic version, when an obstetrician tries to turn the baby into a head down (cephalic) position by applying pressure on the mum’s abdomen.
 
I taught my patient’s partner how to administer this moxibustion treatment at home for the next 10 days. He was very excited to be going home to be a “Moxibuster”!
 
* Cardini, F. and Weixin, H. (1998) ‘Moxibustion for correction of breech presentation’, Journal of the American Medical Association, 280, pp. 1580-1584.