Pregnancy Case Study:

Putting Learning Into Action

Live Holistic Treatment of the Pregnant Body Course

Introduction:

In our latest Live Holistic Treatment of the Pregnant Body course, we had students from all over the USA and even Ireland come to Colorado for a weekend long intensive on the techniques from the course. On our final day, we had pregnant clients come in to be models to help our students practice their techniques and put their learning into action on actual pregnant bodies. I thought I would share what our students and one of the pregnant models experienced during this session in this week’s case study.

Client Characteristics:

Patient was 28-weeks pregnant with her first baby. She complained of back pain and right-sided discomfort in the lower abdomen and hip area. She had difficulty finding a comfortable position and rolling on to her side at night to sleep. She had a history of an injury while playing soccer in her teens. She went up for a head ball and got hit and fell, impacting her pelvis and knocking her out for a brief moment, but she could not remember which side was impacted. She could only walk her dog for 20 – 30 mins with discomfort and could go longer before her pregnancy. Over the years, she’s seen chiropractors for her pelvic alignment and was told she had scoliosis but didn’t have scoliosis when screened for it a year before her soccer injury.

Examination Findings:

In the standing assessment, the most significant issue we observed was the baby was more on the right side, and her iliac crest was higher on the left. One student did note the curvature in her spine from what had been diagnosed as scoliosis.

The students found her uterine mobility was significantly decreased going to the left, and her right round, broad, and uterosacral ligaments were tight. In doing her pelvic mobilizations, we discovered she has hypermobility in her body, so evaluating the pelvic dysfunctions was a bit trickier. In palpating her sacrum, one student found her right side of the sacrum harder. The most significant difference in her pelvic mobility was in right side-lying. Her PSISs and ischiums lacked medial mobility.

Treatment:

The students got to practice all of the uterine ligament releases. They could feel the changes occurring in the belly and saw an improvement in uterine mobility afterward. We were able to make some adjustments to the pelvis, but we ran out of time to completely help this structure. The client is planning to follow up with another session.

Outcomes:

We also got to practice palpating the fundus of the uterus. What was so fun was this model was wearing a striped shirt. The stripes were about one inch apart. When we got done treating her uterine ligaments, we found that the fundus had dropped down two lines on her shirt. Her baby was more in the midline, and she felt more comfortable on her right side. After the session, she commented, “I look about three weeks less pregnant now!”

She reported to me the next day that she could go for a mile walk with her dog, had less pain, and noticed her round ligament might still need more work.

Closing Summary:

It was really fun to see the students practice their techniques on this model effectively, work together to determine best ways to proceed, and reach out to ask questions about what they were finding in our pregnant model’s body. Her body was significantly different and more balanced afterward. We could see it, and more importantly, the model could feel it.

 

About the Live Courses with Institute for Birth Healing: We offer Live sessions for the Holistic Treatment of the Pregnant Body and Holistic Treatment of the Postpartum Body courses. These are a great way to capture all the information from the online course and get in person support to help you learn and feel the techniques in your hands. Check out the Live Course Schedule for upcoming courses in an area near you.

About the Author: Lynn Schulte is a Pelvic Health Therapist and the founder of the Institute for Birth Healing, a pelvic health continuing education organization that specializes in prenatal and postpartum care. For more information, go to https://instituteforbirthhealing.com