5 Things Most People Don’t Know about (East Asian) Herbal Medicine in Pregnancy

I have been practicing acupuncture and herbal medicine since 2019.  I opened the doors of my clinic 2 and a half years after my gynecology teacher gave me herbs to stop bleeding at 14 weeks of pregnancy with my daughter.  That daughter is 8 years old at the time of this writing.  I soon became interested in working with pregnant women myself and this has now become a specialization of mine.   I have realized that when patients come to me mid-pregnancy, often via a referral from a colleague, they are new to herbal medicine and are not sure what to expect.

If you are reading this, it is likely that something does not feel exactly as it should during your current pregnancy, or you are hoping to avoid problems that arose in a previous pregnancy.   

It can be scary to trust a medicine that works so differently than the biomedicine we are all most familiar with.  Here is sort of primer on the use of Traditional East Asian herbal medicine during pregnancy.

East Asian (Chinese) herbal medicine has been practiced in pregnancy for more than 2000 years

(That’s what we have documented, but these texts reference earlier texts.)

Now, a medicine being old does not make it effective or safe, but we are lucky that this particular traditional medicine has survived attempts to disrupt it, so that we have intact records and oral lineages.  Traditional East Asian medicine is rich in case studies and clinical practice.  Practitioners like myself learn by studying our teachers’ case studies and teachers’ teachers’ case studies for examples of effective diagnosis and treatment, as well as learning from their clinical practices.

An important chapter in one of our foundational text books (one that is from 150-219AD, the Jin Gui Yao Lue), is all about treating pregnancy diseases.  Which leads me to my next point.

Throughout time, practitioners of this medicine have been treating the same issues we have in pregnancy today:  threatened miscarriage, nausea, oligo/polyhydramnios, HELLP, convulsions pre and postpartum (eclampsia), and expelling missed miscarriages, for example.

Of course there was no lab work or sonograms so long ago, though today in China they combine these modern diagnostic techniques with traditional ways of seeing.  What they did rely on are more subtle signs and symptoms.  Some of these signs and symptoms are considered normal and healthy according to biomedicine, but to us are signs that treatment is merited in order to stave off future issues.  For example, Braxton Hicks should not be painful, and swelling, while common, is a reason to intervene herbally.  We also monitor the tongue and pulse for early signs that might affect the health of a pregnancy.

As I mentioned in the intro, I had a threatened miscarriage (bleeding) in one of my pregnancies that resolved within 1.5 days with herbal medicine from my then-gynecology teacher.  I have since treated uterine bleeding in pregnant and non-pregnant women and it is very satisfying to see bodies respond.  While cannot make a non-viable pregnancy stick, we can influence the factors that make it harder for a healthy embryo to embed into the endometrium, including helping your body to absorb a subchorionic hematoma.  We never treat a subchorionic hematoma, we just treat your body’s imbalance that is causing bleeding, and this in turn positively impacts the SCH.  If you are having bleeding during pregnancy, this is a sign to rapidly consult all your doctors, including your Traditional East Asian practitioner that specializes in pregnancy.

Throughout most of the past two thousand years, Chinese herbal medicine was also used as emergency medicine. We are so lucky today to have other options. Eclampsia is a serious life-threatening disease, which is why your OB and your acupuncturist/ herbalist work so hard to avoid it. No one would ever call their nearest herbalist if a family member is having an eclampitc fit these days, nor should they! But we do have a very important role to play both before you develop pre-eclampsia and at the earliest indications of developing pre-eclampsia. Which leads me to my next thought.

Acupuncturists and herbalists can notice signs of imbalance before they occur.

We are great to have on your team BEFORE there is a problem!  And we’re specific to your body.

For example, baby aspirin is commonly used in pregnancies that have risk factors.  This is because Western medicine recognizes that pregnancy is a hypercoagulatory condition, and that sometimes the blood being too sticky can cause issues.  Interestingly, the Chapter 22 on pregnancy I mentioned above from 2000 years ago describes formula after formula on how to treat the quality of the blood in pregnancy.   Something I especially appreciate about Traditional East Asian Medicine is that it treats all blood issues as a branch, and requires of us to determine the root cause.  So instead of the same baby aspirin for everyone, we can target blood issues due to cold, blood issues due to heat, blood issues due to deficiency or due to stuck emotions/ life force.  We use YOUR body’s signs and symptoms to diagnose, and then monitor YOUR body’s response closely to assess the accuracy of our treatment.  

Speaking of early intervention, egg and sperm quality have a lot to do with the health of your pregnancy, including the health of your placenta, which impacts your likelihood of developing pre-eclampsia. While promoting pregnancy health ideally begins 3 months before conception, we can do our best to influence health at any point in the process.

Not every East Asian herbalist is experienced in treating pregnancy issues

Everything I know comes from leaders in our field that I studied with AFTER graduate school.  They draw on their decades of clinical experience and their teachers’ decades of experience.  When I am not sure, I have them to turn to.  If you are looking for an herbalist to work with during your pregnancy, it is okay to ask them how they trained and who they consult when they have clinical questions.

In China, Western medicine and Eastern medicine exist side-by-side in the hospital, and are used interchangeably and in tandem for pregnancy and postpartum conditions.

I think that here in the States and in California where I practice, we are missing opportunities to help women have healthier pregnancies, deliveries, postpartum periods and children. I would love to see us better able to integrate the preventive and early-interventional aspects of Traditional East Asian Medicine with the emergency and NICU capacities of Western medicine.