Acupuncture to Induce Labour

Once you are at or near full-term,
acupuncture can be useful to help induce labour

How much treatment do I need?
During pregnancy, we recommend treatment weekly from 36 weeks to prepare you for labour and beyond. During this time we work on important aspects of your system and build your stamina for labour and beyond. Read more about acupuncture during the trimesters here.

At about 40 weeks, we can also start to use points that stimulate your sacral plexus - the nerves responsible for contractions. This help bring labour forward and once you are full-term and then we can do this every 2-3 days, until the baby is delivered.

Where do the needles go?
From early in pregnancy we avoid abdominal points and generally use ‘distal’ points. These are generally on your arms and legs, below your elbow and knees and are the strongest points for affecting the physiology of your system.

Some points will be chosen to help specific issues within your system and some are more generic labour inducing ones.

I will always discuss what points I am going to use first and make sure that you feel comfortable with them.

How much treatment do I need?
During your consultation we will go through your medical history, discuss any symptoms you have and combine these with a Chinese medical diagnosis to understand the best treatment approach for you.

Depending on what stage of pregnancy you are when we first see you, will determine how often we recommend having treatment. Generally, this is weekly up to 40 weeks and then about every 2 to 3 days once full term has been reached.