Chiropractic and C-Sections

1.2 million women undergo cesarean sections each year, according to the website today.msnbc.com. I was one of those women. Chiropractic helped me to recover.

In the case of an emergency c-section, mothers often labor for hours, well past the point of mental and physical exhaustion. A laboring woman’s body is intent on one thing only: pushing out a baby at all costs. A natural birth is tiring by itself. Afterward, a new mother has to go through what amounts to withdrawals of pregnancy hormones that are no longer pumping through her. She is still experiencing uterine contractions, so that it can shrink down to non-pregnancy size. Her metabolism is ramped into overtime still, so that she can heal her body while producing milk for her baby.

A c-section adds two layers of extra difficulty of healing for a new mother. One layer is drugs; the human body has to expend lots of energy to break down, filter, and flush out foreign toxins. Many pain killers are essentially neurotoxins; they stop nerves from perceiving signals, and so pain messages no longer reach the brain. The second layer of complication for the recovering mother is the c-section itself; cutting open several layers of skin, connective tissue, and thick abdominal muscle is major surgery. 

The amazing thing about all this is that thousands of women go through this process, and heal beautifully. The human body has an amazing capacity to heal. Let me tell you how chiropractic helped me. After my own c-section, detoxing and hormonal changes, my body was still regaining strength. My core (consisting of major muscle groups in the central body—abs, postural back muscles, even thighs) was very weak; my abdominal muscles had been stretched thin by a growing baby boy, and then cut open. What I didn’t realize was that I was not able to even walk upright; all my concentration was given to just walking and taking care of my son. My dad took one look at me and knew I needed a chiropractic adjustment. He put me in what is called a “knee-chest” position, braced my weak belly with one hand, and adjusted my severely subluxated spine with the other hand. It was not a move taught in most chiropractic colleges; it was one perfected after forty years of experience for him.

I stood up straight immediately. Restoring the mechanical function and nerve communication pushed me days ahead in healing capacity. Although I am a chiropractor myself, I was amazed at the transformation. Because my body had been through a trauma, I made sure I was adjusted often after that. A couple of adjustments a week became once weekly, which became my regular schedule of one to two adjustments per month.