Prenatal Care for the Body and Mind
Gabby is one of those rare gems in the world that you feel at ease with the minute you’re in her presence. Her name came up from a couple of different colleagues as someone I had to know. And so, early last month, I made it happen. I’m so glad I did. She’s a light in this world, in this city, in the area of chiropractic care. I’m honored to partner with her this month and feature all of the wisdom, compassion, and intelligence she brings to her practice. If you aren’t familiar with the inside space. head over to the site and read all about the studio. Their mission is to help people feel more at home within their bodies. Holistically. Yes, please!!
This week and next, Gabby’s focusing on prenatal care. The last two weeks of the month will focus on postpartum support. I hope you enjoy her writing below!
In today’s fast-paced world with information about quite literally anything at our fingertips, it can be overwhelming to try to understand where to start when it comes to the topic of pregnancy, birth, and, well, how to do it.
Back in the day, people lived in tribes. It was not the sole responsibility of two parents to raise a child. No one did this alone. No one kept quiet the secrets of how people prepared their bodies in the best way possible in order to set themselves up for maximal success in bringing a healthy human into the world. The elders of the tribe were there to support people throughout their pregnancies and their labors—not treating their pregnancies as a pathology, but as an immense show of the force of nature that lives within each and every one of us.
As chiropractors, we refer to that as innate intelligence.
This refers to the body’s capacity to heal, to always work 100% for us, and never anything less. And there is no better show of this than during pregnancy and birth.
Think about it: You started off as two minuscule cells, and have, by some miracle, grown into the radiant human that you are today.
Really take that in for a moment.
At the inside space, we hold this concept at the forefront of all that we do.
We want to remind you that your body is intelligent. Your body knows exactly what to do.
You don’t have to remind your body that at 5 weeks it is time to grow the placenta or that at week 27 it’s time to develop the baby’s sense of smell. Your body is designed for this, no matter how trusting (or not) your western-trained OB/GYN is in that concept. When we can move through these prenatal moments with that as the foundation, we are allowing our bodies to be the best home it can be for a baby to grow and develop over the next 40+ weeks.
We hear everywhere that we need to have a positive mindset, that we need to reduce stress levels, and so on. But how does one actually do that? Life cannot just stop because there is a human growing within. We must continue on…
Prenatal chiropractors like to approach this from the standpoint of the nervous system.
The nervous system controls everything in our entire body, not to mention the very perception of our entire world. Our nervous system is what’s letting us know that the baby is sitting a little too close to that stomach, instigating some reflux. It is what’s letting us know that it is time to push, that this baby is ready to make an appearance earth side.
Our nervous system also perceives our stress and regulates just how we adapt to it. So, while we cannot take away the stressors of life, as chiropractors we can help you adapt to them a bit more gently. As we restore the brain-body connection by way of the nervous system, we can allow for greater harmony to exist within. We have a saying at the inside space. a family chiropractic studio:
Harmony in the body allows for harmony in the mind.
We strive to create more harmony in the nervous system, which allows for a more peaceful experience internally which then allows for decreased cortisol, norepinephrine, and other stress hormones that are beneficial in small bursts, but not when sustained for the duration of a pregnancy.
As prenatal chiropractors, we want to focus on creating physical harmony in the pelvis. We utilize an approach called the Webster Technique, an approach that strives to balance a couple of key pelvic players: the sacrum, the sacrotuberous ligaments, and the round ligaments. As more balance is created in the body, we create more space for the baby to grow and move freely about, which, in turn, creates more space for the pregnant person to feel like their body is still, at least partially, their own.
As more space is created within the pelvis, the baby can move into a more optimal birthing position—ideally, head down and on the left side of the belly. (Chiropractors do not turn breech babies, but the act of creating more space for them to simply be allows for many babies to turn on their own and typically just in time for birth.) Research has shown that women who undergo prenatal care using the Webster Technique have experienced markedly shorter labor times and experience decreased pain intensity during labor.
As chiropractors, there is a heavy emphasis on physical balance and harmony in the body during these experiential and formative months that is the prenatal period. But ultimately, what matters most is that a baby's home for the first nine months of life is a safe, nourishing, and calming place to be —physically, mentally, emotionally, chemically, and spiritually.
