Vol. 2, #2
Daravida News - Special Edition for Moms-To-Be
Welcome to Daravida's online newsletter! Our goal for this publication is to create a resource for empowering our patients, both current and future, to live their healthiest lives.
Welcome to a special edition of our newsletter: this one goes out to all the pregnant moms! If you arrived here from our website's prenatal page, here are the answers to the questions you may have.
Prenatal Chiropractic: pain relief is just the beginning!
Webster Certified + Ready to Help
The Webster Technique is focused on your sacrum. You can read more about it here. When your sacrum is in proper alignment, your pelvic balance is improved which in turn holds many other benefits for you and your baby. During pregnancy, the increased weight on your pelvis and sacrum, coupled with the presence of the hormone relaxin loosening your ligaments, makes subluxations much easier. Nearly any activity, including just sleeping, can put your pelvis and sacrum into a subluxated state.
Dr. Gloria doesn't claim to know it all, but as a mother of three she does know a lot about the experience of being pregnant and having a natural birth (each baby weighed over nine pounds), as well as the chiropractic care from which you and your baby can benefit. What it comes down to is taking the necessary time to take care of you, which allows your baby a great chance at a healthy start.
My Growing Baby + Me
Ensuring that your pelvis is balanced and in proper alignment helps provide your baby with plenty of room to move in your womb. This can help provide:
a more comfortable pregnancy
an increase in neural communication
more room for baby to grow
There are two very important points here which directly affect your delivery: pelvic balance and more room for baby. Read on!
My Birth Experience + My Baby
By maintaining this proper alignment and motion throughout your pregnancy, chiropractic care can also improve your ability to have a safe and natural birth process, which is vital to the health of both mom and baby:
shorter labor time
improved energy levels
fewer interventions
Making sure that baby has plenty of room to move can help make a head-down presentation easier for baby to achieve. If your baby is breech (not in an optimal position for birth), Dr. Gloria, using the Webster Technique, can help create room for baby to turn to a better position.
A study by the American Medical Association found that women who visited a prenatal chiropractor and received regular chiropractic care carried and delivered with greater comfort. Another study concluded that with regular chiropractic adjustments:
need for analgesics decreased by half during delivery
relief was provided for intrauterine constraint (baby's movement is limited)
average amount of time spent in labor decreased by 24% for first time moms
"Chiropractic care throughout pregnancy removes interference to the mother's nervous system, enhancing baby development and uterine function. It balances her pelvis, eliminating undue tension to muscles and ligaments and enhancing optimal fetal positioning."
Jeanne Ohm, DC
Low Back Pain + Hip Pain + Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction
There's a reason that chiropractic care with the Webster Technique is focused on your sacrum. Your expanding uterus is tethered to your sacrum by those relaxed ligaments we talked about and it is pulling your entire pelvic girdle out of place. When that happens, your hips won't lie. And neither will your low back. In fact, they may start screaming at you.
In addition to the Webster Technique, Dr. Gloria will also use gentle stretching and muscle work to alleviate strain on your muscles.
The pubic joint (pubic symphysis) is a fibrocartilaginous joint and is made up of thousands of small ligaments which allow flexibility and torsion (twisting) for the bones. As these ligaments start to loosen due to relaxin, you'll begin to feel pain as your pelvis shifts. Along with your sacrum, Dr. Gloria will adjust your pubic bone in order to get everything aligned.
Thank you for reading and I hope this information has been helpful to you as well as comforting - no worries, no fear! And as you can see, there are many short and long term benefits to regular chiropractic care both for you and your baby, beyond just pain relief. I would love the opportunity to assist you on your pregnancy journey, to help you after delivery, and the joy of caring for your newborn as well. - Dr. Gloria