Holistic Health Acupuncture

Southern Oregon Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine

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May 2, 2019 by Jenny Riegg

Pearls of Postpartum Wisdom from Chinese Medicine

Chinese medicine has a long, rich history of special consideration and treatment for the postpartum mother. These traditional practices see it as essential for the new mother to couple rest with gentle activities and to be deeply nourished, warmed, and supported to help the vital substances (Qi, Blood, Yin & Yang) come back into a state of balance. The postpartum time, and the care a mother is able to receive, can be a crucial period in a woman’s life and often greatly influence her state of health well into the future.

Take Your Time
– Adequate time & care are needed to recover from the tremendous task of pregnancy and childbirth. This is the time to replenish & rebuild energy and blood that were lost during birth as well as boost nutrients and reserves needed to produce breast milk, regulate hormones and give stamina to care for a new baby.
– It is thought that a full 3 months are needed after a baby is born for the womb to fully recover and for vital substances to be fully restored. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Golden Month’ or ‘Sitting Moon’, the first month postpartum is considered the most important.

Stay Warm
– Avoid exposing your body to extreme weather or temperatures. Wind, cold and damp can easily penetrate the postpartum mother as the channels & pores are still open after childbirth and can lead to infections, pathological bleeding & longer recovery time.
– Use moxibustion, a warming therapy with dried Chinese mugwort. Mother Warming or Mother Roasting uses indirect moxa or a moxa box over the lower abdomen and/ or low back to create a deep & penetrating sensation of warmth. Moxa can be used for 10-20 minute sessions until the desired level of heat is felt. This practice helps to encourage the uterus to return to its pre pregnancy size, shape & location, it aids in decreasing after-birth pains, builds breast milk supply, can assist in healing scars from cesarean sections and strengthens overall vitality.

Be Nourished
– Warm yourself from the inside by prioritizing warmed & cooked foods and drinking warm or room temperature beverages. Use warming spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, black & white pepper, clove, nutmeg, fennel & anise.
– Broths are highly encouraged and a core staple of the traditional postpartum diet. Broths made from meat & bones of beef, chicken, lamb or fish and from veggies, seaweeds or mushrooms can be drunk daily and become the base for soups, stews, sauces and congees (grain porridge).
– Emphasizing foods & drinks that are easy to process (i.e. warm temperature, well cooked, soups, broths & congees) are beneficial as digestion is often weak postpartum.
– Eat foods that build Blood to restore what was lost during birth and to encourage lactation. Examples include red meat, organ meats & bone marrow, dark leafy greens, barley, quinoa, oats, dates, avocado, adzuki & kidney beans, black sesame seeds, eggs, nettles & parsley.

Please always check with your acupuncturist to be sure any recommendations are appropriate for your specific constitution and postpartum presentation.

Filed Under: Chinese Medicine, Fertility, Pregnancy, Uncategorized, Women's Health

January 9, 2019 by Jenn Collins

Resources for a healthier path toward pregnancy

Our clinic has many patients coming in to assist with optimizing their fertility, or helping them get ready for IUI, or IVF.  In this article I wanted to give some resources that may be helpful for women who aren’t yet pregnant but are wanting to get pregnant within the next couple of years or months. See more about how we treat fertility at Holistic Health Acupuncture, and read testimonials from our clients.

Many women ask us about diet, and although we know much in this area, there are colleagues of ours that know even more.  Katie Altneau is an acupuncturist in Denver, CO who has a fertility program for women focused on diet and self-care.  Her site offers a 4-day fertility cleanse, and a  fertility meal plan that includes recipes and shopping lists. She also has a postpartum meal guide. She’s terrific at what she does and we highly recommend her.  Katie even has some guided meditations for fertility, which many of you have asked about.

Kathryn Flynn, right here in Jacksonville, OR runs a company called Fertile Foods. Her site has a wealth of information on it as far as recipes and resources go.  She also makes and sells fertility tea blends.

Acubalance Wellness is a fertility acupuncture clinic in Vancouver, BC.  If you are looking for tons of information on the topic of nutrition and diet, then this site has so much available info to sift through.  Here is the link for their food and diet page.

And as many of you already know, acupuncture is amazing for getting the body ready for conception and working with women as pregnancy occurs and progresses.  It’s also a wonderful modality for postpartum conditions and issues that can commonly arise.

Please share this article with anyone you know that wants to optimize their fertility or is planning on conceiving soon.

Have fun cooking and eating the healthiest foods for you and baby to come.

 

Filed Under: Acupuncture, Chinese Medicine, Fertility, Pregnancy, Recipes, Uncategorized, Women's Health

June 6, 2017 by Jenn Collins

News and Resources on Acupuncture in the Rogue Valley and Beyond

It has been a busy past few months for us at Holistic Health Acupuncture.

This February Jenn Collins and Jenny Riegg began offering acupuncture treatments to patients at La Clinica Wellness Center in Medford, Oregon and are excited to keep building our partnership with such a great clinic, staff and clientele. Jenn & Jenny are there 2 days a week treating everything from headaches, back & neck pain, and allergies to insomnia, stress and support with smoking cessation. Patients have been very thankful for our services and we are happy to be part of the growing trend of acupuncture being integrated into primary care medical settings.

We also had the privilege to attend the annual Integrative Fertility Symposium (IFS) in Vancouver, B.C. earlier this Spring. IFS brings together leading professionals in the fields of fertility, maternity care and pediatrics.  Acupuncturists, MDs, NDs, NPs, Reproductive Endocrinologists, and Nutritionists gathered for 4 days of courses specializing in reproductive health. It was incredibly inspiring to be surrounded by so many brilliant speakers and clinicians from all over the globe and we are enjoying bringing back what we have learned to our clients here in the Rogue Valley.

Here are a few links to some of this information that we’d like to share with anyone interested in women’s health, pregnancy, and fertility.

  • The Center for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research has a lot of articles and resources for women of all ages on their page.
  • Debra Betts, a leading expert on acupuncture and pregnancy from New Zealand, has an incredible site filled with information for anyone wanting to know more about how acupuncture can help with pregnancy.
  • Dr. Lorne Brown of Acubalance Wellness Center in BC has a plethora of talks, interview, and articles on his site for understanding how acupuncture works and adds to the success of Fertility treatments.

Filed Under: Acupuncture, Fertility, Pregnancy, Women's Health

 

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1617 E. Barnett Rd.
Medford, Oregon 97504
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325 A Street, Suite 1
Ashland, Oregon 97520
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