Pregnancy and depression, new news.

I promise I'll have posts from other sources, but the New York Times just reported on a study done at Stanford in which women with depression who were pregnant saw significantly greater benefit from symptom-targeted acupuncture than from "generic" acupuncture or massage. Moreover, the amount of benefit these women received from the specific acupuncture was about the same as has been shown for antidepressant medications.

This is important because women who are taking antidepressants and become pregnant often face a difficult choice between continuing on an antidepressant, and taking a risk of harming the fetus, or of stopping the medication and suffering a relapse of their symptoms. (For more information, see the Mayo Clinic summary of risks/benefits of antidepressants during pregnancy.) This research suggests that focused acupuncture might be a great alternative.

It's also worth noting that the massage had a pretty good effect on the subjects' depression symptoms, so one might consider a combination of both anti-depression acupuncture and massage for depression in pregnancy.

Finally, I want to put in a plug for Jeannie Bianchi LAc, an excellent Chinese medicine and acupuncture practitioner whom I have been working with at the Noe Valley Clinic. She does a lot of work with pregnancy and post-partum care, and I've been learning a lot from her. If you are in the SF bay area and are looking for a good acupuncturist, she is great!