At Mama’s Chiropractic, it’s our goal to change the way mothers birth. By balancing the alignment of the pelvis and spine, we strive to improve the birth experience.
There is nothing better than hearing success stories from the mothers that we adjust. Below you’ll find a patient’s birth story who received adjustments in our office for her entire second pregnancy, vs only receiving them for a few weeks of her first pregnancy. The difference in her birth experiences are significant.
My last birth story was a quite a bit different from this one.
I started chiropractic care about week 36, I think. Doc John was well aware of my scoliosis and I responded well to chiropractic care from a pain perspective. I mentioned to him that as I started to have some of my pre-labor contractions that I felt them in my back. He showed Kyle how to apply counter pressure, which might come in handy for back labor. It did.
With my son (20 months old now) we checked into the hospital at around 10:30 the night before he was born. I was dilated 6 cm and labored for (what felt to me like) quite awhile, sticking at certain points, and even at 9cm. Consider that. Stuck at 9cm during transition with back labor. It’s a little tiring, to say the least. My body refused to dilate all the way, because his head was engaged almost crooked and I didn’t have the assistance of his head to dilate the rest of the way. The result was a seriously epic cone head, me having to push him out on my own, and a less than stellar birth experience.
Fast forward 20 months later and we were ready to go with number two. This time at Baby Love Birth Center. In a similar fashion to my son, I had contractions around the clock in the days preceding labor. I prepared myself for a similar birth experience.
At 2:30am the day she was born I woke up pretty uncomfortable. I text the midwife saying that my contractions were the same 7-10 minutes apart that they had been for the past few days, but that I thought maybe they felt a little different. She said to keep monitoring them and if they got closer to let her know. At 3:45 my water broke during a contraction. I let her know and because I was GBS positive, we agreed to meet at the birth center at 5:30. We gathered all our stuff and headed over – after dropping the little man off we ended up arriving at around 5:50. Ivy, the midwife that was on call while Sam was on vacation, checked me. I was only 4-5 cm, so she recommended that I labor around the room before getting into the tub. I hung out for awhile. Listened to some music. Kyle was on the bed sleeping, since last labor was pretty involved and he wanted to rest up as best he could to support me later.
As my contractions got a little more intense, I got irritated with his snoring and asked him to get up. I was texting a friend back and forth the entire time, joking that I couldn’t believe that he was snoring during my contractions. My last text to her was 7:45. Throughout that time, I ate 2 protein bars and an entire pyrex bowl full of strawberries. I drank a ton of water. It was completely different than the lack of food that I had and the IV sticking out of my arm in the hospital with my son. At 7:45 the contractions were intense. I told Ivy and Kyle that I needed to get in the tub, and as I waited for the tub to fill, I became increasingly impatient.
The last contraction I had before I got in the tub was kind of weird. It was like… dry heaving, kinda (without the nausea). During contractions they become so intense that you involuntarily moan – but at the end of this one, it was like my body was trying to push. Really weird. It was particularly weird for me because I never had that desire with KJ, since he was stuck. I got into the tub and almost immediately after had a “pushy” contraction. Ivy asked me if I felt like my body was bearing down. I told her I had no idea.
Less than 45 minutes after I got into the tub, my body pushed out her head. We did have somewhat of an issue getting her shoulders out, but all ended well and she was born at 8:40am. While I wouldn’t call it a “magical experience” by any means, the entire thing amazed me. I sat there for days afterwards just amazed by the fact that my body did everything. The difference in the two births completely blows my mind. There was no prompting, no “pushing”. I remember the first time around when I had my son, and all of the doubt that I was surrounded with from friends and family. “Don’t be upset if it ends in a c-section,” they would say. “I tried to go drug free too. It didn’t work out.” “Don’t be a martyr, Amber.”
After my first birth, I didn’t really know why it mattered that I went drug free. I was happy to have avoided the c-section. I was happy I didn’t subject my baby to drugs during delivery. I was happy for a reasonably uncomplicated labor. But what I was missing that time is the straight up CRAZY fact that your body can do it by itself. Unassisted. No doctors or drugs or beds or anything.
There are probably a number of factors that contribute to me being able to have this birth this time around. But the one thing that I absolutely without a doubt know impacted it was getting chiropractic care during my pregnancy. Having scoliosis, my body is just crooked. My hips are tilted up on the right side, making my right leg appear shorter than my left. Not only did my chiropractic care offset that, but we did additional exercises (side lying release and hip extensions) that helped to put her in the best possible position and avoid the issues we had with KJ.
I think most people think of me as a hippie. They think of the way I approach my health as “new age” and generally see proactive measures as unnecessary. Was I always like this? Definitely not. I don’t even really consider myself a hippie, since I eat McDonalds and don’t necessarily check EVERY label I consume. My shampoo has chemicals in it. I wear makeup. I’m a pretty normal person that just doesn’t want reactive healthcare. I can’t say for sure if chiropractic care is 100% responsible for the birth that I had this time around. But I can say that it was an amazing birth. So, whether it was the chiropractor, the fact that it was my second birth, being a little more in shape, having her at the birth center, or a combination of all of the above – I’m grateful to have received the type of care that I got this time around.
What are my thoughts on this patient’s birth story?
This particular patient received 14 adjustments in 7 weeks with her first pregnancy, starting care approximately 5 weeks before her due date. With her second pregnancy, the focus was more on wellness rather than condition-based care (scoliosis). She received double the number of adjustments (30) in the 40 weeks that she was in my care (with a small pause in the second trimester). This gives us a little bit of insight into suggested starting points for pregnant women and might suggest benefits to starting care prior to week 20 rather than beginning in the third trimester.
Birth is a journey. It’s an honor for me to share that with a mother and it’s truly fantastic to hear the success stories that we get every week at Mama’s Chiropractic.
I hope this story gives you some insight into how important pelvic alignment and balance is to help pregnant women have a safer, more comfortable birth.
This story is the perfect example of the passion in what we do. I literally see chiropractic improve people’s lives on a daily basis.
