SHOCKING BENEFITS Of ACUPUNCTURE In PREGNANCY // First Trimester, Second Trimester, & 3RD Trimester

What's up mamas and mamas-to-be. In today's video I'm going to be breaking down some of the really great benefits of acupuncture during pregnancy. Coming up! Hey hey and welcome back to my channel if you happen to be new here. Hello, welcome. My name is Nicole. I'm a mommy. I'm a pediatric occupational therapist as well as an intentional parenting coach and this channel is geared to just help make motherhood easier on you by sharing tips, tools, strategies, my life experience. If that sounds like something you're into do me a favor and please hit the subscribe button below. Okay so today we're going to be talking about acupuncture during pregnancy and I'm super excited to break down the benefits for you all because I have been curious about acupuncture far before I became pregnant again. It's just something I never really got around to doing and the discomfort of pregnancy actually pushed me to try acupuncture. So if you're curious about it you're going to love this video because I'm breaking down the benefits and we're going to start by trimester. So I go to an amazing soul. Her name is Lauren and she owns and runs Espiritu Acupuncture and that is located in Southern California, Thousand Oaks if you're local and she has just been such a joy to be around. She is not only super knowledgeable but just like so approachable and friendly and so she's been so gracious. She allowed me to film part of our session together and she also shared some really great info. So let's talk about the benefits of acupuncture in the very first trimester. So you're already getting some really wonderful benefits in the first trimester and that includes tonifying and nourishing the body to help maintain the pregnancy and to prevent miscarriages. It can also help reduce constipation, heartburn and I know this is going to be music to a lot of mama's ears. It can really help to decrease that morning sickness that kicks in the first trimester. So if you are struggling with a lot of sickness or nausea acupuncture might be your best friend. So in the second trimester you're not only going to get the amazing benefits from the first trimester that I just mentioned but some added benefits is that it can help reduce anxiety, insomnia as well as aches and pains and it does really start to kick in those aches and pains around the second trimester because our bump is becoming much bigger. Our body is expanding so you might find yourself being motivated to go into acupuncture around the second trimester. I'm pretty sure that's when I started might have been the very end of the second trimester the beginning of the third trimester. So in the third trimester of pregnancy this is probably where you're going to feel the biggest benefit from going to acupuncture. I'm five sessions in and I will say that after this last session it's finally held for some time. I did my sessions pretty back to back initially as the benefits would sort of wear off after a few days or so but this last session that I went to it's been over a week. I want to say we're coming up on two weeks and it's really helped in terms of the back pain I was experiencing, the insomnia I was experiencing and a lot of anxiety. I have a lot of stuff going on in my life right now so it does tend to flare up. It is a neurological reset for me when I go in and have a session. I do feel more calm. I do feel like I'm back at my baseline and I'm able to handle the things that come my way without having such a short few. So that was a really big surprise for me in terms of an unexpected benefit of acupuncture. So I just wanted to show you guys a few clips from my most recent session with Lauren. She is going to go over some of the points that she used during our session together to help me feel more calm, to help me feel less pain and less discomfort and you can kind of get a sense of what it's like to have the needles put in and it's nothing. I mean some people feel them and I do feel certain points when she would place the needle in a certain point. Some points were more sensitive than others. Some points I didn't even I mean there was I felt no contact. So it is interesting how your body responds and I've noticed that my body responds differently the more sessions I have. So here's a quick glimpse of what you can expect if you go into an acupuncture session during pregnancy. What you're doing is trying to just loosen everything up get the you know the cervix to dilate and kind of ripen all that stuff so it's really helpful too. That's all the last four weeks. Perfect. Which is awesome. I know energy is a thing right so when you lose the energy and stress that's also a thing right and then just a baby kind of pain right kind of achiness. Okay yes. So I like to start I'm going to do some on the lower half of the body. Okay the idea behind these two um there's a few points on the outside they help with loosening the tension in the muscles um kind of easing everything up keeping things relaxed the body and mind relaxed. Very important. And we're also going to work up to the head too so the head point is literally for the mind. Oh nice. Perfect. There's one nice one here in the wrist. Okay. That was really nice for kind of calming. I like that. Also really good for nausea so that's at the beginning of the pregnancy it's really helpful for morning sickness but it also just kind of eases the mind. Perfect. Now I keep you calm and relaxed right. I like that. Super important right now. Definitely do that. These are all kind of more so calming the mind. Judy the gallbladder 34. Okay. That's very good for um you know loosening up the tendons like keeping the muscles relaxed all that good stuff so that's really good throughout pregnancy. Okay. And especially towards the end too. Yes. We're trying to keep everything loose um keep the blood flow to the pelvis you know what I mean. Okay. Stomach 36 is another good point that's one right there and that is good for boosting let's say overall clean blood in the body and it's good for immune system health as well. That's nice around these corona times. Yeah a couple points down here so this is on the liver channel. Okay. These points are really good at okay. Good. More stress more calming. I like that. Yeah just um relax the whole body. And so you were kind of telling me last time like if you because I had more of a quote-unquote reaction last time just in terms of feeling it. Yeah. And so it's like your body is allowing that energy to sort of open up and flow then if you're kind of feeling a point more than another. I feel like that. Yeah. Yeah and I mean some people I feel like are just yes um sometimes it takes a few treatments kind of get used to it allow the body to kind of just naturally relax. Yeah. I mean the acupuncture is going to do what needs to be no matter what but as far as you um I feel like for you to actually feel it. Takes a few. We're just going to do a few more points here. Calm everything down. Relax it all. Okay. We'll do yin tang too. That's the one guy right there too. Okay. Especially a little relaxation here. All right my friends I hope you found this video helpful. If you have been using acupuncture either in pregnancy or outside of pregnancy I would love to hear your experiences below. As always if you have any questions or comments leave them down below and I will catch you in the very next video. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.