Acupuncture for pregnancy and labour – developing your own style of practice
Zita West A conventional training in nursing and midwifery can give an excellent background in medical science and healthcare. However, it is the experience of many people in the health professions that conventional medical practice does not provide all the answers. Complementary practice can fill some of the gaps, and its particular strength is in the relationship that the practitioner and patient are able to build up through techniques of consultation and diagnosis. What attracts increasing numbers of patients and practitioners to complementary medicine? I suggest it is that the philosophy on which these medical approaches are founded is evident in their every aspect, from expert knowledge to patient relationships. The patient is at the centre of the approach, and treatments are specific to her, not to the detached notion of her symptoms. Complementary medicine offers more than different techniques of treatment, it offers a quite different approach to health and wellbeing. How should conventional medical practice respond? In exactly the same way: put patients at the centre of the approach to care. The NHS is full of caring people with a vocation for healing, but so much energy is lost in terms of organisation, facilities management, treatment planning, and perhaps, at the highest levels, the distractions of pioneering the next technological breakthrough. The body has an astonishing capacity to heal itself. The essential approach of the acupuncturist is to assist the body’s own mechanisms: support what’s good, strengthen what’s weak, give balance. And it is not just the techniques; it is the whole one-to-one, caring, listening, empathetic approach that supports the patient in this healing process. Of all the human conditions that the medical profession regularly deals with, pregnancy is possibly the most relevant to this point. Pregnancy is not an illness – you have to be healthy to conceive and support a successful pregnancy. Acupuncture has a key role in re-balancing and “tuning up” the body in preparation for the rigours of pregnancy and childbirth. Nevertheless, pregnancy is a condition of high risk, and modern practice and technology have a literally vital role. I believe strongly in conventional and complementary systems working alongside one another – truly complementary. But the contribution that acupuncture can make tends to be recognised only for specific areas such as pain relief where it can give “quick wins” that can measured by the same criteria as a new drug or technology. This may be a convenient outcome for conventional medics, but it is missing the point and the real strength of acupuncture in understanding and tackling the underlying causes. In practice, I am aware of remarkably consistent results for a wide range of other conditions. These include the empirical points handed down to us from the early Chinese physicians and others that have been refined through recent practice. These observations cannot continue to be ignored: we need properly directed research to examine them. There are enormous benefits in acupuncture working alongside conventional hospital and general practice. There are barriers, however. In the first instance, the terminology of both eastern and western systems can seem arcane and mutually obscure. A major recent landmark has been the House of Lords report by the Select Committee for Science and Technology into Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It proposes a range of measures to strengthen mutual understanding. However, while it recognises the efficacy of some specific treatments and regards acupuncture as a first class alternative practice, it ranks Traditional Chinese Medicine, which philosophically underpins acupuncture, as only third class. Has the Committee really understood the complementary approach, rather than selected techniques? There is much that conventional practice can take from complementary medicine – in particular the emphasis on patient-centred treatment and a philosophy of healing that runs through the whole of the practitioner’s work. And the opposite applies, too: complementary practitioners must have a clear understanding of the principles of evidence-based medicine and healthcare. But especially, I would like to see the spirit of discovery and enquiry that was the foundation for advance s in western medical science now be extended to complementary medicine, so that it can be properly studied and more credibly evidence-based itself.