Pregnancy & Postpartum
Supporting Pregnancy & Postpartum With Acupuncture, Nutrition, Traditional Chinese Medicine & Holistic Medicine
Feel Your Best During Pregnancy and Beyond With Acupuncture Benefits
Pregnancy can be such a joyful time. Maybe you’ve waited years for this baby, or maybe it was a surprise. Whatever your journey here, pregnancy and the postpartum weeks that follow, typically the first six to eight weeks after birth, can be challenging both physically and emotionally. We all want to do our best for our babies, but that’s hard when you’re feeling exhausted, nauseated, and in pain.
At Flourish Integrative Health, we support pregnancy and postpartum with acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, nutrition, and integrative medicine for individuals and couples in Sonoma County who want holistic care for pregnancy, recovery, fertility, and women’s health.
We tailor our care to each individual patient and provide relevant support at each step of pregnancy and postpartum recovery, including hormonal balance, pain and stress management, preparation for labor, and physical and emotional healing after birth. Our goals are to address issues early, support a healthy pregnancy, prepare you for labor and delivery, and help you feel well cared for throughout the process.
Schedule Your Free 15-minute Consultation or Initial Pregnancy Intake and Treatment
Care in the First Trimester
While we don’t always see patients right after conception, the early months set the foundation for a healthy pregnancy and your baby’s health for years to come! At this point, we provide support for stabilizing the pregnancy, promoting healthy placental development, managing nausea and morning sickness, and addressing other symptoms of the early hormonal shift.
Most importantly, we’re an early prenatal resource! Our patients know early pregnancy is a crucial time, but they often haven’t been seen by their OB yet, and aren’t yet sharing the news with their community. We offer nutritional recommendations, help point out any teas, foods, products, or activities to avoid, and are a resource to lean on with your questions and concerns.
During these early weeks, acupuncture care is fairly gentle, but that doesn’t mean it’s less effective! Although we support each patient based on their needs, in the first trimester we recommend weekly care through around weeks 6–10. If all is going well after that, and you’re feeling good, we move to care every 2–3 weeks for the rest of the trimester.
Care in the Second Trimester
For many, the second trimester can be glorious! These are the months when you (hopefully) have a little more emotional and physical space to start taking great care of yourself and your overall health.
Our care during this time focuses on supporting healthy digestion and nutrition with iron-rich foods and whole grains, strengthening your body with gentle exercise and easing the aches and pains that pop up as your shape changes, addressing stress and anxiety, and starting to talk about what you can do to prepare for birth and postpartum.
We generally see patients in the second trimester every 2–4 weeks, depending on your needs and how you’re feeling.
Care in the Third Trimester
It’s getting real! Your body is changing quickly, and you know you’ll be meeting your baby soon. The third trimester can be such a physical and emotional rollercoaster. But we’re here to help.
During the third trimester, our biggest focus from a Chinese medicine perspective is building the energetic and nutritional reserves that will carry you through labor and the postpartum period. We continue to support your changing body, frequently addressing swelling, pelvic pain, and sciatica. In particular, we prepare for an on-time and easy labor by encouraging a head-down position and cervical ripening.
We continue care every 2–4 weeks through the first half of the third trimester, then recommend weekly treatments starting around 34 weeks as we prepare more directly for birth.
Specific Conditions We Support During Pregnancy:
- Aches and pains
- Breech position
- Constipation
- Heartburn
- High blood pressure
- Low back pain
- Morning sickness
- Nausea
- Pelvic pain
- Placenta previa
- Postterm / overdue pregnancy
- Recurrent UTIs
- Sciatica
- Swelling
- Threatened miscarriage (spotting, cramping)
- Yeast infections
Postpartum (aka Fourth Trimester) Care and Postpartum Recovery
According to Chinese medicine, the four to six weeks after birth are the golden month — the heart of the fourth trimester and your postpartum recovery. It’s a magical time to nest with your newborn, let your body and spirit rest and heal from giving birth, nourish yourself well, and start building the rhythms that ground your relationship with this newest family member.
It can also be a time fraught with challenges, from low milk production and mastitis to fatigue, baby blues, and postpartum depression, and you’re managing all of it on only a few hours of sleep.
We focus our postpartum care on nourishing your body and steadying the physical changes and emotional health of new parenthood. Postpartum acupuncture treatment supports physical recovery and healing after a vaginal birth or C-section, helps restore hormonal balance after childbirth, encourages milk production, and calms the nervous system for stress reduction, easing postpartum anxiety, the baby blues, and other mental health conditions in new mothers. It can also relieve urinary incontinence and other symptoms. Safe with a licensed acupuncturist, this care pairs with herbal medicine, nutrition, and self-care for your overall well-being. We account for any existing health conditions and medication, coordinating with your healthcare providers and Western medicine.
Our Goal Is to Get You Back to Feeling Like Yourself Again, so That You Can Be Present With Your Little One in These Early Days.
Specific Conditions We Support During Postpartum:
- Baby blues
- Breast problems, such as swollen breasts, infection and clogged ducts, mastitis
- Cesarean-section incision pain
- Difficulty regaining your pre-pregnancy shape
- Discomfort during sex
- Episiotomy healing
- Fatigue, sleeplessness
- Gas pains
- Hair loss
- Hemorrhoids and constipation
- Hormonal shifts
- Insufficient Lactation
- Pain in the perineal area (between the vagina and the rectum)
- Postpartum depression or baby blues
- Stretch marks
- Urinary or fecal (stool) incontinence
- Vaginal discharge
- Vaginal or perineal problems