What if we leave it be? (Is it safe? Part 1)
I was asked about cupping in pregnancy – and prior to presenting the Bun in Oven 3 hour training (miscarriage avoidance) for Pro D seminars in 2007 – I had to prepare a lot as Lorne was not convinced – new to the game as he was. . Used to dealing with men’s ways of knowing and of being.
THIS IS NOT MEDICINE – it is life – as taught by wise elders.
As a clinician who has been trained decades ago primarily in classical acupuncture, with western naturopathy as a side line, and concurrently having several decades of being an aware maternal researcher and birth advocate, I feel that there is a disconnect in others who are hooked into following the dominant biomedical model, although using TCM as their model of care. Here I seek to address this.
1 – Using TCM we know that Yang Qi is needed to keep transformation, transportation, warming, protection and keeping all structures and blood in place. Using TCM organ pathology, we know the role of Blood is crucial in all matters reproductive for women.
2 – We know Blood and Jing are made through the interactions of the middle heater, and that all is dependent in Yang Qi to allow appropriate circulation after transformation.
3 – We also know the role of the Jing in all of this; the need for stable foundation and restful sleep afforded by adequate Yin Qi and how this is granted through the balanced interaction between the two.
4 – We know the root of all Yang in the body is the Kidney complex. We know that the signs and symptoms of a deficiency in any or all of these aspects shows up as reproductive issues, and central to life the ability to go through the normal developmental stages, hormones available to run the messages about, all fed by the Yang/Yuan fueled middle heater – to sustain life we need a strong Yang base.
5 – We also know that when Spleen Qi Xu, a person may suffer from a raft of complaints that can be life threatening (blood loss/haemorraging/placental shearing away/ and for baby – incomplete placental flow of all types including clotting problems, or/and a premature end to pregnancy), or ‘just’ life quality depleting (maternal nausea/lack of appetite /inability to transform foods into nutrients to use in the body).
6 – We know that Blood quality is essential – and all the inadequate gut flora issues (GO TO DAMP) often lead into infections (PHLEGM- DAMP) – at the very least incomplete digestion in all forms.
7 – We further know CONTEXT that this may have been happening all the woman’s life and she may not have a complete store of the raw ingredients needed to make a perfect pregnancy and baby.
Instead of following back through her history to ensure that when her ‘baby making’ apparatus is put to use it is in the best state possible, there seems to be a tendency to ‘help’ her subvert what nature is asking her to do – get well first. By jumping on the biomedical (‘bypass the obvious’) ART/IVF bandwagon, and even to ‘assist’ assisted reproduction we could stop to ask ourselves there – ‘is it safe?’
What might I mean? In times past the food/raw foundation may have been far better (sacred foods). ‘Is it safe?’ comes at us from all sides – forgetting that intuitive knowledge just was. All knew what was safe and right – and just did it.
We now live where the consequences for almost all the new and different ways to do everything are not being challenged – as they are granted through the free market and the authority of the medical and scientific (themselves retail industries).
We could now stop to ask – why may sex be not making babies automatically?
Could it be the contraceptives that all mums of the current generation trying to conceive had access to? Is the plummet in male fertility which has lead to the concentration of women now told that they themselves are infertile – (when actually who cold conceive using the 4% normal looking sperm?) to get donor eggs (as though his fertility issues are her issue) really the issue – and can we change this through paying attention to our, not heir ‘take;’ on life?
I would suggest from my nearly four decades of my own clinical fertility/obstetric work that yes it is very easy to shift – just improve their combined states of health, start with the obvious.
Using the Jing markers I have discovered hold the keys, it is then easy to see then when conception is likely – when they both have filled up their Jing tanks – as evidenced through their BBT (‘downstairs’) then being perfect and the Jing Markers now all intact. How? From living according to how all had to – decades before them.
Moving on into pregnancy
It is easy enough to see the ‘high risk’ pregnancies and the not perfect outcomes – both for mums and babies that follow such ill advised, though financially lucrative paths. No farmer could afford to throw any old stud in with his prize breeding females – any more than he would not let any females into his breeding programme that were not in top condition.
Why so humans?
Using our medicine
Whilst biomedicine is not looking to the obvious – we could.
We could also learn from what just was.
We have Jing markers and can get the couples BBTs to show that the path of pregnancy is not secure with a wobbly set of Jing, Blood and Yang as the foundation of the project.
Using the wisdoms of the elders past
Cupping the stored cold out is the foundation to all the reproductive and other general work I have done in the past 30 years. As such is not only ‘safe’ but imperative – if we look to the basic premises held in East Asian medicine.
Please review of what Cold does in the body, and the role of Yang Qi is essential here.
As biomedicine is being taught in tandem with the energy medicine, the energy component seems to have be supplanted through TCM and organ pathology/ herbalised content, it may be needed to review also the role of meridians – especially those of the extraordinary ones as they supervise, regulate and maintain the flow of Qi and Blood in the twelve main. In 2006 I designed a seminar series – ‘The Role of The Eight Extra Meridians in Women’s Lives and Maternity’.
This is part of the online offering here – includes also perineal steaming – AND Soothing – the gentling belly moves..
These also carry the constitutional information, so are crucial in our understanding of the workings of the reproductive cycle.
From here we then may answer – along with the assumed knowledge of the organ pathology system – how getting rid of the cold stored in a pregnant woman’s body – usually showing on her actual belly – is so often pivotal (as is the allied metabolism health – ie the thyroid controls all) to the optimal path of pregnancy/birth and lives of both mum and baby post birthing.
