Women's Health
Morning Sickness
Alleviating
Morning Sickness without drugs
Drug therapy is a risky business at the best of times, but it
is even more hazardous when applied to pregnant women. Who could forget
the terrible consequences of the morning sickness drug ‘Distaval’ in
the 1960’s - a drug which was accompanied by the assurance ‘can be
given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without
adverse effect on mother or child’ -which created the Thalidomide
tragedy. In 1969 Dr W Chr Muller of the then West German Gynaecological
University Clinic reported in the authoritative medical journal Munchner
Medizinische Wochenschrift (No.34, 1969) a survey by German doctors which
revealed that "for 61% of all malformed children born alive and 88%
of all stillborn children, the intake of various drugs had to be held
responsible."
It is for this reason that responsible scientists
must look at alternative ways of helping pregnant women with the symptoms
of morning sickness. Researchers at the Department of Anaesthetics, Queen’s
University, Belfast believe that they have found at least one natural,
safe and effective treatment to help prevent morning sickness during
pregnancy - acupressure.
Over 300 women in the early stages of pregnancy
were randomly divided into three groups. The first group received daily
pressure at P6 (Neiguan) acupuncture point, the second group received
acupressure at a non-specific point and the third group had no treatment
at all. All of the women’s symptoms were monitored over a period of four
consecutive days. The results showed that troublesome symptoms associated
with morning sickness were significantly lower in treatment group than the
other groups. Where-as only 23 out of 119 women in the treatment group
experienced any morning sickness symptoms, nearly double that number (41
out of 112) experienced symptoms in the placebo treatment group and nearly
three times the number of women in the control group recorded symptoms. No
side effects occurred and the researchers concluded that pressure at the
Neiguan point appears to have a specific therapeutic effect in helping to
prevent the symptoms associated with morning sickness.
P6 acupressure reduces morning sickness Dundee JW;
Sourial FB; Ghaly RG; Bell PF Department of Anaesthetics, Queen’s
University, Belfast. J R Soc Med (ENGLAND) Aug 1988, 81 (8) p456-7
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This page was last updated on 19 October 2006 11:17:18
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