Friday, May 22, 2009

Chiropractic Care for Morning Sickness

I've finally found something that seems to work! For me, that is...

Here's my history:

When I was doing my research into naturopathic remedies for morning sickness, chiropractic care was one of the options that came up. However, I did not get a chiropractic adjustment during this pregnancy until two weeks ago. Why? Well, for the reason that I have a bartering arrangement with my chiropractor - she gives me an adjustment, and I cook her dinner. Need I say more, LOL? Cooking doesn't happen with morning sickness!

However, after hurting my back a month ago, my nausea skyrocketed - to the point of throwing up multiple times (this is at a time when I hadn't thrown up for several weeks). This is the first evidence I saw showing me concretely that spinal alignment affects nausea! I realized that I really needed to go to the chiropractor for my back, regardless of my nausea, and so I payed cash and went. Not only did my back feel better, but my nausea was greatly reduced. I was able to back off on the nausea meds considerably.

However, the nausea gradually crept up again - and then improved again with my next chiropractor appointment! So I have now seen three instances in which spinal alignment has affected my nausea levels (one negatively and two positively).

A couple of notes:

- An adjustment has not made my nausea disappear - just lessen.

- Also, the lessening was not permanent - repeat adjustments would be necessary to deal with nausea.

Would this work for everyone? Mmm... maybe, but I doubt it. Here are my thoughts:

- Remedies for morning sickness/hyperemesis seem to be highly individual. If you spend more than 30 seconds on the internet researching morning sickness remedies, you will find countless repetitions of, "I had terrible morning sickness until I tried [insert remedy here], and I haven't had any problems since!" Then one tries said remedy, and it has no effect. For example, ginger is lauded to the skies for morning sickness - for me, it just made things worse. So while chiropractic care might work for some people, I'm not going to say that it's a cure-all for everyone.

- As I said, this didn't cause my nausea to disappear - only lessen. When one is truly dealing with hyperemesis, a slight reduction in nausea just isn't going to cut it.

- And again, with this pregnancy I did not experience hyperemesis. What works for morning sickness (sea bands, ginger, protein snacks, etc.) is generally ineffectual or useless for hyperemesis. So it might be worth a try, but I'd use it in conjunction with anti-emetic drugs. Hyperemesis is not something that one wants to play around with and risk letting get out of control.

Anyhow, it's something to try! I'm going to try to commit to getting an adjustment every two weeks through this pregnancy, both for nausea and for breech/posterior prevention (and for an easier labor). So I'll post if I get any more insight into this matter! Please let me know if anyone else has used chiropractic care (or any other alternative care) for nausea successfully.

10 comments:

  1. When i was pregnant i didn't have morning sickness until my 3rd month. Its not that bad but i hate the feeling of throwing up even i didn't ate anything.They say that its normal but then if your right there feeling it its tiring and not fun at all.I enjoy being pregnant specially when my baby moves a lot. Its like saying "Hi mom, hi dad, i'm here. I want to go out of mom's belly and see everyone outside

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  3. In addition to helping control aches and pains during pregnancy, chiropractic care has been demonstrated in studies to reduce labor time and reduce the likelihood of back pain during labor. Natural, and drug-free, chiropractic is better for baby and mom!

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  4. Dr. Devine - Absolutely!! With my last pregnancy I saw a family and pregnancy chiropractor, and it helped a TON. Also, she is skilled in the Webster technique and has helped turn breech and posteriors, so I have seen all the help that chiropractic care can do for pregnant mothers.

    Dr. Carter - Thanks for visiting, and for your comment! I just now saw your comment when Dr. Devine's comment came in, so you must have commented during a time last year when I wasn't receiving comment notification. Thank you for visiting!!

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  5. Since around week 6 I had been suffering from morning sickness. At around week 10 I started seeing a chiropractor because of extreme hip pain and numbness. The chiropractic has been helping a great deal with the numbness (much to my doubting relatives' chagrin), but I also noticed that my nausea greatly diminished.

    I thought it might have been a fluke, so I did an online search for pregnancy and chiropractic care. It looks like you are not the only one it has helped!

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  6. Kahlora - I'm so glad that chiropractic care has helped your nausea! I hope it continues to do so! I need to look into that again. :)

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