CHIROPRACTIC & PREGNANCY
CHIROPRACTIC
DURING
PREGNANCY
Back and pelvic pain are among the most common physical complaints of pregnancy. A Cochrane review of 34 trials involving 5,121 pregnant women found that more than two-thirds of pregnant women experience low back pain, and almost one in five experience pelvic pain — often increasing as the pregnancy progresses, and interfering with work, daily activities and sleep.
What the evidence shows, and what it doesn't
​We would rather tell you this plainly than oversell it.
That same Cochrane review found low-quality evidence that exercise may reduce pregnancy-related low back pain, and moderate-to-low-quality evidence that exercise improves day-to-day function and reduces sick leave. For manual therapy the picture is thinner: evidence from single studies suggested that manual therapy combined with exercise and education may be of benefit, but the reviewers judged the overall quality of evidence to be low to moderate and noted that further research is likely to change the estimates.
Where adverse effects were reported in those trials, they were minor and temporary.
What that means for you: there is reasonable support for staying active and for a combined approach, and honest uncertainty about how much manual therapy adds on its own. We will not tell you chiropractic is proven to fix pregnancy pain, because the research does not say that.
​What a visit looks like
We see pregnant patients at our rooms in Oakleigh East, in Melbourne's south-east.
​
The Gonstead assessment is the same seven steps we use with every patient — history, visualisation, instrumentation, static and motion palpation, and neurological and orthopaedic testing — with technique and force modified for pregnancy, and positioning adjusted as the pregnancy progresses.
We do not take X-rays during pregnancy.
If your symptoms are outside what chiropractic should be managing, we will say so and refer you back to your GP, obstetrician or midwife. We would rather do that than treat something that is not ours to treat.
Talk to us first
If you are pregnant and not sure whether this is right for you, call (03) 9568 0155. We offer a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation so you can ask before you book.
Reference: Liddle SD, Pennick V. Interventions for preventing and treating low-back and pelvic pain during pregnancy. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2015, Issue 9, CD001139.