Acupuncture in Pregnancy and Childbirth,
Edition 2
By Zita West

Publication Date: 16 Jan 2008
Description
ACUPUNCTURE IN PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH is a concise highly illustrated and practical guide to using acupuncture to treat women throughout their pregnancy and labour. Drawing on an unparalleled wealth of experience as a midwife and an acupuncturist, the author has produced a book accessible to both acupuncture students and practitioners covering physiology related to pregnancy and childbirth, illuminating links between Western knowledge and acupuncture approaches and suggesting points and point combinations for particular stages and actions during pregnancy and labour.

Key Features

  • Highly illustrated with summary boxes and guidelines
  • Covers nutritional aspects of pregnancy
  • Gives practical advice and instruction on the use of acupuncture through the four trimesters of pregnancy and labour
  • Uses case examples to further illustrate the text

New Features

  • Covers recent advances in relation to the effects of aspirin and heparin to the immune system and pregnancy
  • Includes IVF pregnancies
  • Glossary and appendix of useful addresses
  • Fully updated and revised throughout to include recent research
  • Nutrition and its effect on the foetus (new and developing area of research)
About the author
By Zita West, Midwife, and Acupuncturist, Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK
Table of Contents
Western Medical Glossary

1. Planning for a healthy baby

2. Pregnancy

3. Nutrition in pregnancy

4. Antenatal care explained

5. First trimester: 1 to 12 weeks

6. Second trimester: 13 to 28 weeks

7. Third trimester: 28 to 40 weeks

8. High risk pregnancies

9. Abnormal positions of the fetus

10.Preparation for labour

11.Labour

12. First stage of labour

13. Second stage of labour

14. Third stage of labour

15. Postnatal period-the fourth trimester

16. Classical Five Element acupuncture and its use in postnatal depression

Appendix Standard international nomenclature for the 14 meridians

Index
Book Reviews
"One of the joys of this book is Zita’s ability to combine knowledge of the traditional western approach, essential for the confidence of those non-midwife acupuncturists, with the traditional eastern knowledge, essential for all practitioners, to produce a detailed ‘how to’ book. However, I would also recommend this book to midwives and student midwives in general. The terminology used in TCM is wonderfully evocative (the uterus is known as the ‘envelope of Yin’, and improving postnatal wellbeing may involve ‘mother roasting’), yet also so alien sounding that many may dismiss this book as being of specialist interest only. Please don’t! There is so much knowledge, and understanding of the underlying principle of holistic care, and the fundamental importance of all aspects of a mother’s wellbeing before, during and after pregnancy, that it would be unfortunate if this book became purely a specialist tome."
MIDIRS Digest
Book details
ISBN: 9780443103711
Page Count: 272
Retail Price : £51.99
Maciocia: Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Chinese Medicine, 0443 05458 4, 1998, Churchill Livingstone, 959 pp,
Published in 1998, there are some chapters relating to the same topics as Zita Wests book but not in so much detail and not covering physiology to the same degree.

Lyttleton – Treatment of Infertility with Chinese Medicine,04430 6640X, 2004, 422 pp,
Focuses on infertility and not pregnancy and childbirth like the new edition of West.

Yelland: Acupuncture for Midwives 2e, 07506 54139, 2005, Books for Midwives, 154 pp, £14.99
This is aimed at the small midwife market as opposed to the large acupuncturist market.
Audience
Acupuncturists (particularly non medical), midwives, acupuncture and physiotherapy students