A few years back, a midwife that I worked with jokingly asked me to supply the mothers we serve with a remedy to address all of their unresolved emotional issues from childhood. She touted, “A mother’s body knows what to do. Even the baby knows what to do. If we could just get Mom to have utter trust and faith in her own process, that would be awesome, then the babe can just swim through her. Do you have a remedy for that?” Well, the truth is we do!
Here are the remedies I gave to her over a decade ago.
HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINE literally means “similar suffering,” and uses highly diluted energetic remedies to address the underlying root cause of symptoms, if applied correctly. The remedies cannot cause harm due to the fact that they are so highly diluted, however, they can remove blockages a to cure. Just as a state of mind can eventually produce physical symptoms, we can in turn knock out the physical symptoms, by addressing the state of mind.
The founder, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, discerned over 200 years ago that you can actually apply the law of cure, “like cures like,” addressing the underlying cause of someone’s physical or mental suffering. He cured hundreds of cases of Scarlet Fever and Cholera, for example, in his lifetime without causing an ounce of harm to newborns, pregnant women, the elderly or to anyone in between. In this expanded article, I’m going to show you how to apply the same law of natural medicine and achieve the same results for your pregnancy and birth so that you, too, can have utter trust and faith in your own process, let-ting go as much as possible to your in-tended birth plan. Midwives and doulas can provide the new moms in their care, with the same efficacious remedies providing relief to many complaints. I’ll also show you which Bach Flower Essences you can use, safely and naturally, to support and heal your worries and concerns along the way.
All Flower Essences are actually applied on the law of opposites meaning that they work through a supportive and healative principle, rather than a curative one. They use a more feminine energetic impulse to gently shift the state of mind. The Homeopathic remedies are more direct or heavy handed, albeit in a subtle way, at eradicating the root cause of a blockage or disease pattern in the body, and are applied on the principle of similars. Flower Essences (based on opposites), and homeopathic remedies (based on similars), can be used together in a very complementary way.
BACH FLOWER ESSENCES FOR BIRTH (or helping to stay in the moment)
Mimulus – For common fears like contractions, or what if I lose control of my birth plan, or what if I need a “C” section? Mimulus can help to mitigate these fears enabling you to relax and go more with the flow of things as they progress, bolstering your faith.
Aspen – For anxiety and fears that are without any reason. Sometimes we have no clue what is making us feel apprehensive, like something is going to go awry. Aspen can help to restore feelings of well-being and positive self-talk.
Walnut – For major transition. This essence can help you to feel grounded and protected from outside influences during periods of major change like birth. It is like having a “little white bubble of protection” so that you can focus on the job at hand.
Rescue® Remedy – is a mix of five original Bach Flower Remedies for shock, terror, agitation, loss of control, and feelings of faintness. It’s an ideal one-remedy solution to take into labour with you and lots of women have benefited from sipping on this combination.CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’RE A NEW MOM!Olive – Tired out and up again at 3 a.m.! Olive is for total exhaustion when you feel as if you don’t have another ounce of strength left in you to make another effort.
Olive helps to get your feet back under you so that you can more easily change another diaper or commit to another feeding.
Larch – Unsure of myself and wanting someone else to take charge. This essence can be useful after all the experts have gone back home and you’re left holding the baby. Larch will melt any feelings of inferiority, enabling you to step up with confidence in your own innate abilities without old patterns of anticipating failure.
Elm – Feeling overwhelmed. Elm will help enable you to let go of feelings of despondency or inadequacy arising from not knowing where to start. After taking this essence, you may feel the capacity to prioritize with ease meeting more easily the needs of your newborn and yourself.
Pine – The essence of pine is a feeling of guilt, or self-blame. This can come up especially when the birth plan did not unfold as desired, and the new mom blames herself and has the feeling that she somehow didn’t do every-thing she could have or should have done to promote a healthy pregnancy and birth experience. Pine helps to restore the mom’s state of mind to the healthy side of the fine line between self-blame and self-responsibility.
COMMONLY USED HOMEOPATHIC BIRTH REMEDIES
Aconite napellus (Acon.) – For when you feel that you “may die” and contractions feel like a runaway train and the intensity is taking your breath away. This remedy can help to mitigate fear and anxiety so that you don’t feel so restless and agitated. This can also help baby to resolve shock or fright through all stages of birth.
Arnica montana (Arn.) – Our para-mount remedy for feeling bruised, sore and beaten-up during labour. The individual in this state does not want to be touched. It will help with any soft tissue damage to the birth canal or perineum and is one of several remedies we use in our post-surgery complex.
Arsenicum album (Ars.) – Is a chief remedy for anxiety, restlessness, diarrhea or vomiting. It is also helpful when Mom can’t let go of the reins and trust her doula or midwife. She may have a control-freakish nature and just apply the same fear of losing control to her birth process, anxiously mired in the details. The mom will also generally feel chilly and perhaps try to go off on her own in an anxious state. This is the time to set up the birthing pool with warm water and give Arsenicum to help with exhaustion and to ease with transition.
Caulophyllum (Caul.) – Is used in the case of false labour where pains are irregular, fleeting and all over the abdomen. Caul. will help to concert the effort, making the labour productive and focused, also helping the cervix to dilate appropriately without any unproductive pricking pains.
Cimicifuga racemosa (Cimic.) – For when there are inappropriate spasms and rigidness in the cervix or when the uterus ascends high into the stomach region during contractions. Also, Mom will cite that pains just fly from side to side of her belly in a painful, but irregular way. Caul. and Cimc. can be used simultaneously to help labour become productive and focussed.
Chamomilla (Cham.) – While typically a fussy baby remedy, Cham. can also be used during the birth when the Mom is agitated, angry or extremely irritable. The essence of this remedy can be described as “capricious,” meaning that they ask for something, but then reject it out of extreme irritability – being in so much pain or irritation that they don’t know what they want. Chamomilla will be extremely calming to the nerves and will help the mother to focus on the birthing process, no longer eclipsed by the pain.
Now you have a great arsenal of Homeopathic Remedies and Flower Essences to help you during your birthing process and you now want to know where to get them and how to use them. Most local pharmacies, apothecaries and health food stores will carry or order-in all remedies mentioned above.
Certainly Bach Remedies can be purchased from their site at www.bachremedies.com Flower Essences are super easy to use, as there aren’t different potencies to choose from. Also, there are hundreds of Flower Essences available in the world from Canadian Tree Essences, North American Flower Essences, Aus-tralian Essences and even Pacific Sea Essences. It is not that I’ve overlooked them, it is just that for the purpose of this article, I stuck with the primary, foundational essences as a baseline. Feel free to explore on your own.
Homeopathic remedies are slightly more challenging to navigate as potencies can range from more physical complaints to mental/emotional to even more spiritual or karmic issues. In this case, it is safe to use homeopathic remedies in the 30CH or 200CH dilution. The idea being that the more significant or acute the state, the higher the potency needed. For example, if you bumped into a table and felt the skin discolour into a bruise, then the potencies listed above are just fine. If the issue is much more severe, like a case of shock or anaphylaxis, we would use potencies like 1M or even 10M.
The frequency that you dose Flower Essences and Homeopathic Remedies is based on the severity of the condition or disease state. It is best to drop a dose under the tongue if you are preventing the state from occurring, however, a full-blown acute state will warrant more frequent dosing up to several times in a minute when a symptom or condition is at its most extreme. In the latter situation, you can put a drop (or pel-et) of one, or a combination of remedies in water as they do not interfere with each other. The idea being to sip on the Rx until the symptoms abate.
