The importance of chiropractic care before, during and after pregnancy cannot be stressed enough.

Most pregnant women seek chiropractic care during the last trimester of pregnancy complaining of low back pain. Although chiropractic care can help them immensely, if they had started chiropractic care prior to get pregnant or at an earlier stage of pregnancy most of their symptoms could have been prevented or significantly reduced.

Research shows that one of the major reasons for low back pain during pregnancy and complications during labour is correlated to poor maternal musculoskeletal health and sedentary lifestyle.

Moreover, as full term nears, good maternal posture is found to lower the risk of intrauterine constraint and to encourage the fetus to take up an occiput anterior position at the start of labour.

How can good musculoskeletal health and maternal posture be secured? Answer: by adjusting the spine and restoring the normal biomechanics of movement! The evidence shows that chiropractic care decreases mean duration of labour by 24% in the first pregnancy and 39% in the subsequent pregnancies when compared to medical care.

It goes without saying that a faster delivery also greatly reduces the risk of complications and traumas to the newborn and his/her spine!

Finally, chiropractic care can assist and speed up recovery from the mechanical stresses of delivery to the mothers’ pelvic girdle and her body as a whole.

There are many benefits of nursing, and expectant mothers should definitely be cautioned about the influence of baby formula advertisements according to many studies. Mothers who were give formula information were five times more likely to stop breastfeeding the first few days after delivery.

This is very sad, as the newborn baby needs to build its immune system. Through mothers colostrums in the first six weeks of life it will enhance greatly.
Besides it creates a deeply emotional relationship between mother and baby.

Nursing allows an emotional development of the baby, produces better psychomotor development, allows better growth and helps faster recovery from illness. Breast milk contains its own antibiotics that will help baby maintain good health.

Through breast milk, baby will diminish the possibilities of infant colic, diabetes, ear infection, allergic illness, diaper rash, and prevent development of germs in the intestines and help against tooth cavity.
Also breastfeeding assists the mother by reducing the risk of ovarian and breast cancer, puerperal bleeding, depression and osteoporosis.

Other benefits include saving money and time and offering a more hygienic way of feeding. The baby will get all the nutrients it needs from the mother.

There is nothing more natural than a mother breastfeeding her child.

Written by Melissa Thelwall Bjargo