by Randine Lewis, Ph.D., Lic.Ac.
The joy of a long awaited pregnancy. The fulfillment of a woman’s greatest desire, the almost cellular need to carry and give birth to a child. Those of us who have experienced difficulty conceiving are especially rewarded by this gift of life, and we wear it proudly! We don’t hide our bellies or our swagger. We rush out to buy maternity clothes and announce to the world that we are with child. Yes, we are the ones who wear the unsightly “baby” t-shirts, as if anyone else needs an explanation! And yes, I admit that that too was me.
Pregnancy was the goal. I had made it. I was with child. I had experienced early miscarriages before, so I held my breath through the milestones of pregnancy – the rising hCG levels, the first heart beat, the blood tests, the eight week mark, then the ten week mark, and finally the long-awaited arrival of twelve weeks. The amnio. I sailed through the amniocentesis, and found out two weeks later that genetically everything was fine. This was going to be a normal pregnancy. I could breathe and enjoy it.
I remembered my miscarriages all too well. One day I was pregnant and content, the next day the lab work wasn’t so good, and by the end of the week the baby had no heartbeat. There was nothing my doctor or anyone could do, except caution me to stay off my feet and try not to worry – it was out of our hands. I lived with the devastation of this lost life for too long. The only remedy that could take away the grief was another child. Only a woman who has experienced the loss of a child inside of her can know the depth of this sorrow. I now understand first-hand the despair of not wanting to go on. One of the most difficult aspects of this experience for me was that there was NOTHING my doctors or anybody else could do. Medicine had nothing to offer but to expedite the loss with a D & C. For a woman who suffered through infertility, this is no consolation. I might never carry a child again.
But here I was again, given another chance. This pregnancy went along just fine. I gained more than the appropriate amount of weight, assumed normal daily activities and planned for the arrival of my son. Then it happened. I woke up early one morning at 22 weeks hemorrhaging. My husband was out of the country. How could this be happening?! I shut down emotionally and went into autopilot. I called my obstetrician and drove myself to the hospital. I was on bedrest for the next ten weeks, in and out of the hospital. I was given steroid shots, IV’s, and was hooked up to a fetal monitor almost around the clock. Here is the kicker – once again, there was nothing they could do for me. Every few days I would lose more blood. My family donated blood for the inevitable transfusions. I was wheeled to the neonatal ICU to get used to the surroundings my child would likely be born into – if he was born alive. My son was born at 32 weeks via emergency caesarean and did spend the first couple weeks of his life in intensive care, but today he is healthy and I am grateful.
Today I practice Chinese medicine in the treatment of infertility and miscarriage prevention. I had experienced my infertility and miscarriages after western medical school. I am also married to an M.D. Yet, we knew this area of medicine did not offer all it could. It had lagged behind the cutting edge medicine where we can manipulate every aspect of our health. When we are with child, medicine develops a “hands off” policy. Perhaps there is very little conventional western medicine can offer to a woman who has suffered through recurrent miscarriages. Even the field of reproductive immunology is fraught with controversy. Yet we are not without options. We can treat certain types of threatened miscarriages – naturally and non-invasively. Let me paint another picture for you, this time of a woman who came to my clinic, years later, to receive a different form of medicine.
Beth was thirty-one, and had just moved to Houston the week before her phone call to me She was referred to me by a midwife she had called because of “shoulder pain.” I told her I would have to refer her to a colleague, as I only treated fertility and related conditions. She blurted out, in tears, that she was also in the process of rejecting her sixth pregnancy. I told her to come in immediately. She took a cab to my clinic within fifteen minutes. She was pale and white, and even her lips were lacking color. She looked like she was in shock. She had found out she was pregnant just before they moved. She had been pregnant five times previously—once when she was a teenager, and four times over the last two years. Each time the story was the same: she missed her period, went in to the clinic for blood tests to assess beta-hCG and progesterone levels, which were adequate and rising as they should. A few weeks later, however, she would get severe cramping. She would be given supplemental progesterone and minerals and advised to remain on bed rest, but the cramps would continue to worsen in intensity, only to be followed the next week by bleeding, and loss of the pregnancy.
This time the contractions had just begun. Beth was five weeks pregnant, and her right shoulder was extremely painful. She seemed almost in denial about the presence of the uterine cramping, as if she couldn’t survive another miscarriage. She focused only on the pain in her shoulder. I put a few acupuncture needles in the shoulder area, and as the pain resolved she relaxed. She then became acutely aware of the uterine cramping and started sobbing. One method Chinese medicine uses to assess the body’s reactions is the quality of the pulse. Beth’s pulses had the classic quality of pregnancy but the quality would come and go. During a contraction the pulse was undetectable. When it returned it was choppy and uneven. This scenario fits a condition which the Chinese have recognized for thousands of years, a type of reaction to pregnancy called “blood stasis in the uterus.”
Treating this scenario can be risky during pregnancy, but when the condition known as blood stasis is present if the condition isn’t addressed and resolved the fetus will abort. I switched the focus of the acupuncture treatments to resolving the blood stasis in the uterus and rectifying Beth’s energies. Her facial color returned almost immediately and the cramping diminished. I brewed her a cup of herbal tea designed to resolve stasis in the womb during pregnancy, and she drank two cups right then and there. Within about twenty minutes her contractions stopped. We talked at length about what her body was going through, and I told her based upon my experience, I thought she was rejecting her pregnancies. I advised her to come in for treatments at least two times a week and drink the herbal tea three times a day—more if the contractions returned. She told me she had very little money, so we agreed on a lesser payment that she could afford for one weekly treatment. However, I told her I would see her as often as was necessary. She came in every other day for two weeks. She drank the tea without fail, and her pregnancy continued. At that point I told Beth we could stop treatments but to call me if the contractions returned. When she was five months pregnant Beth’s contractions resumed, and she immediately came to my clinic. I gave her acupuncture treatments once per week for the rest of her pregnancy, and she continued taking the herbs. She carried her son to eight and a half months, and gave birth at home.
The herbal formula I had prescribed for Beth is often used to treat endometriosis and uterine fibroids, and other manifestations of uterine stasis. It also has the empiric effect of lowering certain immunologic factors in the blood. Although she did not have a history of these conditions, her treatment was based solely upon her pattern presentation. Whatever the cause of her previous miscarriages, the root imbalance had been resolved, and with some ongoing support, she was able to maintain her pregnancy until it was safe for her child to be born. She has since carried one more child to term with the care of Chinese medicine.
Some physicians call this type of story anecdotal. It does not fit well within the confines of scientific, reproducible, placebo-controlled studies. Yet it works and it has worked for thousands of years. Sometimes it takes a shift in paradigm to open the mind to other forms of thought and health care. It is this shift that is allowing women with conception difficulties to conceive and carry their children to term, naturally.
© Copyright 2000, Eastern Harmony Medical Acupuncture Clinic - All Rights Reserved. Reprinted here by permission of the author and Eastern Harmony Medical Acupuncture Clinic.
, and The Way of the Fertile Soul.
