The Scottish
Institute of Reflexology Journal ‘Footnotes’, Volume 3,
Issue 8, March 2004
The Use Of Reflexology In Childbirth
By Moshe
Kruchik-Biderman
My first time in
the delivery room, when I helped two mothers deliver their
babies, was an amazing experience which I will never
forget. Being a reflexologist in the delivery room is so
different from normal practice, where the client has a
treatment, probably once a week, and the results happen
over a period of time. Here, the practice is intensive, it
can take more hours than you can imagine, in constant
attendance, and the results are immediate.
It was during
the year 2000, before I settled down in Denmark, that I
worked as a childbirth therapist at the Meir Hospital in
Kfar Sava in Israel, assisting more that forty mothers
during delivery. This was part of a special course for
experienced touch therapists, with an accent on Shiatsu and
Chinese Medicine, but not particularly reflexology. Much
emphasis was put on stimulating the meridians, and this for
me, was a great breakthrough in my understanding of
reflexology and the process of delivery.
The first
consideration when coming to the delivery room is that our
task is to help the mother have her baby in the most
effective way possible. This means to help her in relieving
pain, inducing her to relax, regulating contractions,
inducing labour and facilitating an effective response of
her body.In Israel, most of the women come to the delivery
room with an idea of how the labour will proceed:
induction, monitor, epidural anaesthesia. The great
majority of the women in Israel have their babies in what
is called "conventional labour", which in almost all the
cases will have at least one of the above elements, and in
many cases all three. The use of touch therapies in the
delivery room can advocate an awareness about the
advantages of the active birth and reduce the dependence on
chemicals or technology.
The
use of reflexology in labour is rare as only a few
practitioners all over the world use reflexology as a
stimulating technique. It is a pity as the results, when
applied properly, are simply extraordinary. The fact that
almost every woman I treated was connected to a monitor was
certainly an advantage, because it gave me a way to measure
the effectiveness of the treatment in real time. A monitor
is a device that measures mainly three important things:
first, the intra-uterine pressure, giving an idea of
intensiveness of the contractions and accurately measuring
their periodicity, second, the baby’s pulse and third, the
mother’s blood pressure. It also has a speaker which
reproduces the baby’s heartbeat.
The monitor allowed me to measure the positive and
immediate effect of specific purposes:
1.
provoking or stimulating induction and regulating
contractions.
Other very
important processes in which reflexology worked
wonderfully, were however impossible to measure by the
monitor:
2. stimulating intestinal evacuation, as a way to
facilitate further contractions;
3. stimulating urinary evacuation, as a way to release
pressure over the uterus and to widen the delivery channel;
4. helping to regulate body temperature;
5. releasing back pain, especially lower back pain;
6. relaxation;
7. stimulating the uterus to expel the placenta after the
delivery.
The
role of chemical induction in labour is very common, at
least in Israel. A drug called Pitocin is given, whose
synthetic formula replaces the natural hormone oxytocin,
which is released by the pituitary gland and works as a
positive feedback, provoking the contraction of the uterus.
When Pitocin is administrated, a fixed dose of the hormone
is released into the bloodstream, provoking an immediate
response in the pituitary, which releases great amounts of
oxytocin, causing generally uncontrolled and often very
painful contractions. Depending on the dose given, the body
is usually unable to control the hormone, contractions
become stronger and the pain is in many of the cases so
hard, that it doesn't take long before the mother demands
epidural anaesthesia. This can often interrupt the active
birth process as the woman does not feel the need to push
and labour is retarded. In an active birth the hormones are
released gradually according to the body's needs.
When it was
suggested by the midwives to stimulate contractions with
reflexology, the results were so effective that the whole
delivery was definitely a less painful experience, not only
because the contractions were natural and controlled by the
body, but because it saved hours of worthless suffering,
making it shorter than expected. Considering the
intensiveness of pain during labour, saving some hours of
pain to the mother is of great importance.
Four months after my first delivery, I treated a young lady
who wanted to have her baby naturally, without monitor,
induction nor anaesthesia. After 14 hours of having
released the amniotic liquid, she was only 2cm dilated and
was only having weak contractions every eight minutes. In
other words, she was not in labour.
The doctor in charge of the delivery ordered Pitocin to be
administered to provoke induction. She was asthmatic, and
she would probably have strong contractions, however, after
a short period of time she would probably have breathing
difficulties. Considering that she would need to help the
labour progress with correct breathing exercises in the
later stage, I asked the doctor to postpone the
administration of Pitocin for at least one hour to see how
her body reacted to reflexology. He fortunately agreed, and
after one hour of stimulating contractions with
reflexology, dilatation was 4cm and contractions were every
three minutes. There was no further need to administer
Pitocin, nor epidural anaesthesia. From that moment, many
doctors recognized that reflexology could be an excellent
option when considering induction.
We have to understand that pain is positive when the future
mother is able to deal with it and when she can work with
it. Pushing and breathing correctly are not only excellent
exercises to stimulate labour, but also the body’s
instinctive response to pain makes them a necessary step in
the expelling process. When there are contractions, and as
a result of the contractions, there is also dilatation,
then contractions are effective. When there are
contractions without further dilatation, we only have
worthless pain.
During labour, once or twice every hour, depending on the
stage of the delivery, the midwife checks dilatation. The
standards for good dilatation are 1cm every hour. When
reflexology was given to stimulate contractions, increased
dilatation happened in 75% of the cases, with an average
rate of 1.5cm every hour. In the remaining 25%, dilatation
was never less than the standard. In those cases in which
there is much pain and strong contractions without
dilatation, it is worthwhile reducing the intensiveness of
the contractions allowing the future mother to relax and
conserve energy. It is possible to do this by working very
gently on the uterus reflex and the lower spine reflexes.
Conclusions
My experience was that reflexology is an excellent
technique used during labour, not only because of its
effectiveness, but also because it is pleasant, friendly
and non-invasive. The mothers' pre-disposition and attitude
to labour had a positive response in a great majority of
the cases. After the birth, those women were absolutely
positive that they would have reflexology and touch
therapies the next time.
The midwives would give an intuitive but logical forecast
on the length of delivery based on a number of parameters;
age, number of previous births, dilation, timing of
contractions, releases of amniotic fluid, blood pressure,
pain, stress, etc. In reality, the deliveries stimulated
with reflexology lasted an average of 30% less than
forecasted. Some midwives were a bit suspicious and quite
sceptical at the beginning, while some were positive about
the use of natural techniques. After almost one year of
working together, their general attitude to reflexology was
much more than positive.
I was honoured to conduct a number of special seminars
about the use of reflexology in the delivery room for all
the midwifery staff in two hospitals - Meir in Kfar Sava
and Tel-Hashomer in Ramat-Gan - after that. The interest
and the respect they showed for reflexology opened the
doors of the delivery room.
