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Deepak Chopra, MD
"EFT offers great healing benefits."
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques®) Where emotional relief brings physical health
Self help method often works where nothing else will No Drugs Involved ~ High Success Rate
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Severe Labor Pains: Giving birth at home
Dr. Brad Miller, DC skillfully helped his patient, Cherie, come through severe emotional issues and unusual labor pains while giving birth at home. Please note that there is a difference of opinion regarding EFT's use for pregnancy and a discussion on this issue can be found at this link
Hi Gary,
One of the areas I specialize in as a chiropractor is pregnancy. A fair number of my patients choose to have home births (which I support). On July 4th I got a phone call from a midwife, Sue, who was attending the birth of a patient of mine, Cherie. Sue told me that Cherie had been in labor for 14 hours, dilated at 3 cm. and had not progressed at all in her labor. She was having periodic "severe emotional breakdowns" and was in severe pain and too exhausted to last much longer.
Sue, a very experienced midwife, had tried everything she knew to no avail; if something didn’t change, she would have to have Cherie transported to the hospital for interventions. There are worse things, I suppose, than transport to the hospital, but it’s not the sort of birth Cherie and her husband wanted. I told Sue I had a few tricks up my sleeve and drove over.
Since I had seen Cherie regularly throughout her pregnancy, using the specific chiropractic Webster technique, I guessed that probably hers was not a physical problem; and from what the midwife had told me I guessed that EFT would probably help.
When I got to her house I joined Cherie on the floor. Since I had taught her EFT at the office to help reduce some of her stress, I told her that we were going to use EFT to see if we could get her pain down to a tolerable level. She agreed that would be a good thing. (I think this is an important distinction; labor hurts, I understand. The issue is not whether or not it will hurt, but whether a person can handle that pain.)
She rated the pain in her abdomen a 10, and the pain in her back a 9. We tapped: "Even though I have this pain, I deeply and completely love and accept myself", with "this pain" as a reminder phrase for one round. When we were done Cherie seemed to relax a little; she rated her belly pain at an 8 and said her back pain was a 0.
"Well, that’s a good start," I said. "But the pain is worse with my contractions!" Cherie said. So we tapped: "Even though I have this pain with my contractions…"
Between her contractions, which began to get a little more regular, now about 2 = minutes apart, I would talk to Cherie and try to get a different description about her pains, and we would tap on that. "This intense pain," "This ring of fire," "This pain in my belly," "This pain in my abdomen." It seemed as if the general relaxation from the tapping was helping a little bit, but she was still pretty far from fine.
I tried some choices such as: "Even though I have this intense pain with my contractions, I deeply and completely love and accept my self, and I choose to handle the pain easily and naturally," then at each point: "this pain, I can handle it, this pain, nothing I can’t handle, I’m doing great, I can handle it, I’m excellent, I can do it…"
What we had done so far might have taken about 10 minutes in a regular session, but because of her contractions, we had been at it now for about 45 minutes. She was maybe a little better, but that was all. My intuition told me that the following question was likely to bring up a lot of intensity, and if I was working on someone who was not in labor and near being sent to the hospital I might have eased into it a little more gently, but I didn’t see how I could do that under the circumstances.
I asked Cherie "Could you put an emotion to the pain you’re having with your contractions?"
"Maybe."
"What do you think that emotion would be?" I asked.
"Fear," Cherie said, then cried "Fear that I’m not going to be able to do it again! And fear that I’m not going to be able to get out of my own way again!" Though I don’t like to see people cry during EFT, this was certainly the intensity we needed for progress. I continued to tap on her quietly for 4 or 5 rounds until Cherie stopped crying. Her next contraction went easily.
Even though it seemed as if we were done, just to make sure we did a few more rounds on fear that I’m not going to be able to do it again and fear that I’m not going to be able to get out of my own way. A few minutes later she walked upstairs by herself to labor in her tub.
Sue, the midwife, told me later that Cherie’s first labor with her 3 year old son had stalled for 48 hours at 3 cm dilated and she had to be transported to the hospital, and probably when Cherie heard that she was at 3 cm again the whole experience just came back to her.
The labor assistants said that for the rest of her labor Cherie seemed more relaxed, had a better attitude, and nothing seemed to bother her. The midwife, who had been called out and didn’t get to see much of the tapping, said when she came back she "had witnessed a total transformation," and was disappointed she "didn’t get to see whatever miracle I had performed." Cherie gave birth to a healthy baby boy about 12 hours after I left, at home. Mom and Dad and child were in the tub and spent about = hour in alone quiet time together.
EFT certainly saved the day and allowed these parents to have the birth that they wanted. Interestingly, there was a problem delivering the placenta and Cherie had to be transported to the hospital for that. This would have happened at home or in the hospital, so I don’t feel that it diminishes the benefit the family got from EFT in having the birth they wanted. I do wonder if we had been able to clear all the issues about the first birth, as well as the issues that may have led to difficulty with that first birth in the first place, if the result would have been different.
As an aside, while EFT can certainly work with this sort of "emergency", taking care of these sorts of birth issues before labor starts would be optimum. I am working with the midwives on a program to do that.
Brad Miller, D.C.
