Acupuncture to induce labour - any danger?

[lainey1981]

hello,

At ante natal class the other week, a midwife mentioned that acupuncture can be a good way to stimulate uterus for labour to begin.
I was thinking of booking a treatment for next week if I go overdue (am 39+1 currently)

has anyone had any experience of this? I looked in to the posh yummy mummy clinics who all want to charge approx £70 a session which is a little steep,
we have lots of chinese herbal medicine centres near to me, and went and spoke to lovely man yesterday who said their treatment costs £35 for 30 mins.

Now I'm sure that these staff are more than qualified/experience to know which points are safe/not safe to use but just wanted to check if there are any places that should definitely NOT be touched?
I think he said there were 8 points in the arm and hand - does anyone know if this seems right?

thanks

I don't know the ins and outs, but make sure you go to a qualified acupuncturist.

I had acupuncture at the beginning of the year, and the lady who did it said that there were several circumstances where the practitioner shouldn't do anything to try to induce labour.
I think amongst these were if the baby was breech, if you had a history of CS/difficult births, or if it was a high risk pregnancy.

I had accupuncture to induce me with my 1st and it worked brilliantly. Had a show when I got back that lunchtime and then started contracting that evening. Agree with faverolles that you need to go to a qualified one though. Your midwife may be able to recommend one - mine did.

Why are "you sure that these staff are more than qualified"?

I personally wouldn't be going to a local shop that wasn't recommended by someone you knew and you didn't know their qualifications. There have been court cases over un-qualified practitioners doing quite serious damage to people (more to do with herbs than acupuncture though). I have personally had an extremely worrying acupuncture consultation with someone who was clearly having a mental crisis/was unstable.

£35 difference between the two treatments is not very much in the scheme of things: yours and your baby's health must be safeguarded.

thanks for your replies - you are right. I have contacted the acupuncture council to see if they are registered - not worth taking any risks at this stage.

oops I meant to write the treatment as £25 for 30 minutes - so £45 difference, but still I will go to someone verified as reputable.