Epidurals, spinal anesthesia, and analgesics work well against labor pains. However, they do have some side effects including nausea and vomiting as well as increasing the chance that some assisted birth is needed. There are some natural ways to help with labor pains and most of them orient around relaxation. In this episode of #AskDrJonas, I discuss how you can increase relaxation and decrease pain during labor and delivery.
Dr. Wayne Jonas answers the questions that every person, who truly values their health, wants to know in his video series #AskDrJonas. He is an integrative health and health care expert, practicing family physician, researcher, widely published scientific investigator, and author of How Healing Works: Get Well and Stay Well Using Your Hidden Power to Heal. Dr. Jonas is the president of Healing Works Foundation. Additionally, Dr. Jonas is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Medical Corps of the United States Army.
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- There is some evidence to suggest that immersion in water, relaxation, acupuncture, massage and local anesthetic nerve blocks or non-opioid drugs may improve management of labor pain, with few adverse effects.
- Relaxation techniques for pain management during labor including yoga.
- Hypnosis for pain management during labor and childbirth
- “Lower Back Pain Care Providers (nurse educators, nurse midwives, and obstetricians) Survey- Massage (61.4%), acupuncture (44.6%), relaxation (42.6%), yoga (40.6%), and chiropractic (36.6%) were the most common CAM therapies recommended for LBP in pregnancy by the providers of prenatal health care in our sample.” Shu-Ming Wang, Peggy De Zinno, Leona Fermo, Keith William, Alison A. Caldwell-Andrews, Ferne Bravemen, and Zeev N. Kain. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. July 2005, 11(3): 459-464.
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