Prenatal

Improving Your Pregnancy with Chiropractic Care:
Today’s woman constantly juggles an incredible number of responsibilities:  jobs, children, friendships, marriages, errands, appointments-the list is endless!  You’ve got to be healthy just to keep up. 
Women have special health concerns during every phase of their lives; pregnancy is certainly one of the most important and complex phases.  Although the changes women experience  from pregnancy are natural, a little extra help is sometimes needed to cope with the dramatic changes in their bodies.  Dr. Amundson is Webster Technique Certified and has helped many women have comfortable, healthy pregnancies.  She will help you do the same.

A Perfect Pregnancy:
In addition to the noticeable changes pregnancy causes in a woman’s body, pregnancy can cause subtle changes in the musculoskeletal system; changes your chiropractor is able to detect and correct.  Because the baby lies forward in the woman’s body during pregnancy, her center of gravity shifts and the spine alters itself to accommodate this change.  As a result, many expectant mothers may experience lower back and pelvic pain. 

These stresses and strains can be relieved with regular chiropractic care.  Many chiropractic patients report that their deliveries were faster and more comfortable than deliveries prior to chiropractic care. It’s especially important during pregnancy that nerve impulses flow from the brain to all parts of the body.  A slightly out of place vertebra can create nerve irritation that snarls the body’s communication system. 

Using gentle spinal adjustments, the chiropractic doctor can relieve this nerve irritation, allowing the body’s energy to flow freely again and eliminate periodic pain through nature’s own healing power!  The doctor will use special, modified technique during your pregnancy to make your spinal adjustments easy and comfortable. It’s easier to be fit, healthy, and experience a trouble-free pregnancy when your body freely sends the right messages.  

Chiropractic care focuses on the overall effect of spinal misalignment on the nerves that carry health-giving energy to every cell of the body.  Chiropractic helps women get well and stay well-before, during, and after their pregnancies.

TIPS TO EASE THE STRAIN OF CARING FOR A BABY:
Caring for a baby is rewarding-and hard work.  Like other kinds of work that require lifting, bending, long periods of sitting, and repetitive motions, it can be harmful to your body.  Try these simple tips to prevent problems before they begin.

• Put one foot on a box or low shelf when you stand and change diapers.  This causes your pelvis to tilt in a way that decreases pelvic fatigue.
• Keep work surfaces at a comfortable height.  Put something under the legs of the changing table, for instance, to raise it if you are tall.
• Don’t try to hold the baby and wrestle the side the of a crib down at the same time.  Instead, drop the crib side before you pick up the child.
• Don’t bend from the waist  wen you lift the child.  Squat with your back straight, keep the child close to you, and use your leg muscles to rise.
• Don’t bend over into the car when putting your chld in the car seat. Sit sideways on the seat with the child on your lap, then rotate to face front and put the child in the seat.
• Make sure your feet touch the floor and your back is supported when you sit holding your child  Keep your knees at the same height as your hips or slightly higher.

The Webster Technique Defined By Jeanne Ohm, DC, Director of the ICPA Chiropractic care benefits all aspects of your body’s ability to be healthy. This is accomplished by working with the nervous system–the communication system between your brain and body.

Doctors of Chiropractic work to correct spinal, pelvic and cranial misalignments (subluxations). When misaligned, these structures create an imbalance in surrounding muscles and ligaments. Additionally, the resulting nerve system stress may affect the body’s ability to function optimally. Sacral misalignment causes the tightening and torsion of specific pelvic muscles and ligaments.  It is these tense muscles and ligaments and their constraining effect on the uterus which prevents the baby from comfortably assuming the best possible position for birth.

The Webster Technique is defined as a specific chiropractic analysis and adjustment that reduces interference to the nerve system and facilitates biomechanical balance in pelvic structures, muscles and ligaments. This has been shown to reduce the effects of intrauterine constraint, allowing the baby to get into the best possible position for birth. Dr. Larry Webster, Founder of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association discovered this technique as a safe means to restore proper pelvic balance and function for pregnant mothers.

In expectant mothers presenting breech, there has been a high reported success rate of the baby turning to the normal vertex position. This technique has been successfully used in women whose babies present transverse and posterior as well. It has also successfully used with twins. Any position of the baby other than ROA may indicate the presence of sacral subluxation and therefore intrauterine constraint. At no time should this technique be interpreted as an obstetric, “breech turning” technique. It is strongly recommended by the ICPA instructors of this technique that this specific analysis and adjustment of the sacrum be used throughout pregnancy, to detect imbalance and optimize pelvic biomechanics in preparation for safer, easier births. Because of the effect the chiropractic adjustment has on all body functions by reducing nerve system stress, pregnant mothers should have their spines checked regularly throughout pregnancy, optimizing health benefits for both the mother and baby.

The International Chiropractic Pediatric Association offers classes of instruction and issues its qualified attendees a Certificate of Proficiency in the Webster Technique. Only those doctors on our site maintain recognized certification status with the ICPA.