How Homeopathy Can Help Birthing Mothers

Knowing how to use some basic remedies for labor and birth is an act of empowerment, of taking control and responsibility for your own and your baby’s health. Even better is to have your birth support people know to use homeopathic remedies so they can better support you.

Having homeopathic first aid remedies on hand and knowing how to use them can be a great way to avoid more drastic intervention and pharmaceutical drugs with their well known long term side effects.

Homeopathy can be a turning point, shifting things back into balance gently when there appears to be no other option. It offers an alternative when things don’t go as planned and may prevent the cascade of intervention and medicalization of birth.

By learning remedies and being able to choose which to use when there is a delay or mishap, empowers women and their birth partners to be more in charge of their own birthing journey.

Homeopathics can be taken quickly as a first line of action while on the way to seek professional help in an emergency, and in less acute situations they may avoid the need for help altogether. (Obviously common sense needs to be used.) And if they don’t happen to work, then there is no harm done! They are completely non-toxic.

To learn how to use homeopathy for birth visit this page.

 Homeopathy Facts

• Homeopathy has been shown to be at least as effective as conventional medicine¹.
• Every year in Australia 14,000 people die from medical errors in hospitals.² Homeopathy is non toxic and has less and much milder side effects than pharmaceutical drugs.¹
• Homeopathy is the second most used medical system in the world (WHO, 2009).

Homeopathy In Pregnancy

Homeopathy is non toxic with only miniscule amounts of a substance left in a remedy. Conventional medicines on the other hand, are generally not recommended during pregnancy as they cross the placenta and can be harmful to a baby.³ 

Homeopathy can be used for a wide range of conditions both acute and chronic, ranging from morning sickness, headaches and varicose veins to preparing the body for birth.⁴

Homeopathy in Labor and Birth

Many studies have shown the beneficial use of homeopathics during labor. Taking Arnica and Bellis at the start of labor has been shown to keep haemoglobin levels higher after birth (i.e. reduces amount of blood lost) than in those people not using homeopathics¹⁰.

A study in the UK showed that having a homeopathic kit to self administer remedies with during labor and birth helped those who used it⁵.

Midwives who use homeopathy in labor, say that it generally helps women have gentle, uncomplicated births with quick recoveries^6.

Remedies can be used to help emotionally through transition, to cope with pain, to keep labor progressing, as well as to help the physical body⁷.  Postnatally, homeopathy can be used for healing perineal trauma, preventing infection, mastitis, and many other emotional and physical situations.

A homeopathic first aid kit is also a vital additive to the cupboard for childhood fevers, teething, earaches, colds, diarrhea, cuts and bruises, and bites and stings and many more small ailments.

Check out our online course on basic first aid remedies for birth here

So what is Homeopathy?

By its very nature, homeopathy is empowering to women and birth. Rather than enforcing a synthetic action in a woman’s body, homeopathy aims to get the person’s own vital force responding in a more balanced way. It does not induce an effect, rather it stimulates the body’s own strength and vitality to adapt itself to the situation and respond accordingly.

Homoeopathy is a system of healing based on the principle that ‘like cures like’, i.e. substances that cause certain symptoms in a healthy person, are capable of treating those same symptoms in the sick.

For example, cutting an onion creates symptoms of runny eyes, stinging eyes and runny nose. Therefore it can be used to treat these same symptoms pathologically; i.e. Onion (Allium Cepa) is a remedy beneficial for certain types of hayfever and common colds⁸.

Developed by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician and chemist, homeopathy has been used worldwide for the last 200 years and so has a broad clinical basis⁴.

Homoeopathy works on treating what is known as the ‘vital force’, the intelligent, invisible part of us that animates and gives life to the body. By strengthening the vitality of a person, the body is enabled to free itself from infection and susceptibility to diseases, which in turn strengthens its ability to resist these in the future.⁴

Where conventional medicine aims to rid the organisms seen to be causing the disease, homeopathy aims to strengthen the person so that they themselves may throw off the dis-ease. Homeopathy treats the person first, using symptoms as a guide.

This article first appeared at the authors blog @WildFlowerWalker and is used with permission.

Heidi Wedd runs various circles and online courses in shamanic herbalism, herbal alchemy, plant spirit communication and flower codes. Author of ‘Wild Flower Walker: A Pilgrimage to Nature on the Bibbulmun Track’, she is passionate about reawakening and deepening our innate connection with Nature. Her history is deeply embedded with plants, herbalism, homeopathy and midwifery. www.wildflowerwalker.com

References

1. Riley, D., Fischer, M., Singh, B, Haidvogl, M., & Heger, M. (2001). Homeopathy and conventional medicine: An outcomes study comparing effectiveness in a primary care setting.The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 7(2), 149-159.
2. TheAustralian, March 15, 1999,17.
3. Therapeutic Goods Administration Australian Drug Evaluation Committee(1999). Prescribing medicines in pregnancy: An Australian categorization of risk of drug use.Canberra, Australia: TGA Publications.
4. Castro, M. (1999). Homeopathy: A theoretical framework and clinical application.Journal of Nurse-Midwifery 44(3), 280-290.
5. Steen, M., & Calvert, J., (2007). Homeopathic remedies for self – administration during childbirth.British Journal of Midwifery 15(3), 159-165.
6. Raisler, J., (2009). Alternative Healing in Nurse-Midwifery Practice, Journal of Nurse-Midwifery 44(3), 310 – 319.
7. Martin, P. (2002). Homeopathic induction: beyond cimicifuga and caulophyllum (natural labor induction). Midwifery Today 28.
8. Baxter, J., & Perrin, C. (2006). Homeopathy as a choice: The new holistic antenatal clinic.British Journal of Midwifery 14 (12), 718-721.
9. Steen, M., & Calvert, J. (2006). Homeopathy for childbirth: Remedies and research.Midwives: The official journal of the Royal College of Midwives 9(11), 438-440.
10. Oberbaum, M., Galoyan, N., Lerner-Geva, L., Singer, S.R., Grisaru, S., Shashar, D., & Samueloff, A. (2005). The effect of the homeopathic remedies Arnica montana and Bellis perennis on mild post-partum bleeding: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Preliminary results.Complementary Therapies in Medicine 13, 87-90.