Acupuncture Shown to Relieve Pelvic Pregnancy Pain

http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.p...st_item&id=690

"Acupuncture Shown to Relieve Pelvic Pregnancy Pain", ABC News, March
17, 2005,
Link:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=7936881

Acupuncture and exercise can help relieve pelvic pain during pregnancy,
Swedish researchers said on Friday.

About 30 percent of pregnant women suffer pelvic pain, usually in the
back. Although doctors are not sure what causes it, they suspect a
surge in hormones during pregnancy affects muscles and ligaments.

Women can wear a pelvic belt to relieve the pain and do exercises at
home. Stabilizing exercises to improve mobility and strength is another
therapy.

But researchers at the Institute for the Health of Women and Children,
in Gothenburg, Sweden found acupuncture also helps.

"Acupuncture decreases the pain," Helen Elden, a midwife at the
institute, told Reuters.

Elden and her colleagues compared standard treatment, stabilizing
exercises and acupuncture on 386 pregnant women. Those who received
acupuncture and did the exercises for six weeks reported less pain than
the others.

The pain scale was also assessed by an independent examiner.

The researchers said acupuncture and stabilizing exercises are
effective complements to standard treatment for pelvic pain during
pregnancy.

"The findings are of particular importance because no previous study
has shown such marked treatment effects among pregnant women with well
defined pelvic girdle pain," the researchers said in a report published
online by the British Medical Journal.