During Pregnancy, Are Working the Ankle Points in Reflexology Dangerous?

hello and welcome Adam Thomas from balancing touch reflexology so good to see you and thanks for joining me today today I want to cover and answer hopefully um some recent questions that I've gotten about pregnancy um can you work on somebody who's pregnant um I know you're supposed to avoid ankle points uh what are those points and so forth so I want to just cover the broad topic of pregnancy and working on the feet can you do it so before I jump right in and talk about um and answer the questions the best that I can um I had to do some research on this because I myself was curious as to why can't we work on ankle points right I was taught a certain way um and uh just to sort of put this out there you know number one I don't specialize in um fertility this is not my area of uh focus and expertise secondly what I was taught so the first trimester can be a little bit dicey and also um just before Labor right can be a little bit dicey my instructor said yeah go go for it work on it but just have some uh precautionary uh things meaning like filling out the intake form right and then number three point here is so I had to do some research because I wasn't really sure as to what why um out there there's this uh belief this myth this you know has been passed down to other people other than even reflexologists right I get clients coming all the time going and same as these questions that I got on YouTube right like why um I know I can work on the feed or but there's some ankle points that I need to avoid and so what are these right so first of all let's just go over the um ankle points okay so what we're talking about here are the reproductive organs okay and they're found in the ankles here at least by the um reflexology that I do so they're found right there is this would be like the ovaries and then up and around here to the inside this would be where the uterus area is okay so um what I was taught was over stimulation of these is probably not um great okay when I was doing my a little bit of research here I came across a bunch of different about Five Points why um the decision to avoid working on ankle points uh in reflexology during pregnancy is often based on caution and traditional practices here are some reasons why practitioners might choose to avoid these points so I'm just going to read kind of the the little bit of research that I did so number one is the stimulation of uterine contractions in reflexology acupuncture massage certain points on the ankle are believed to correspond to reproductive organs including the uterus stimulating these points could potentially um trigger uterine contractions which might pose risk to premature labor or miscarriage especially during early stages of the pregnancy number two lack of resarch while these modalities have been used for centuries and are generally considered safe for most individuals there is limited scientific research specifically addressing the effects on pregnant women due to the lack of conclusive evidence regarding the safety of working on ankle points during pregnancy practitioners may choose to eror on the side of caution okay number three individual variability every pregnant woman's body is unique and May and what may be safe for one woman could potentially cause discomfort or adverse uh effects in another given the variability in individual responses practitioners May opt to avoid working on the ankle points altogether to minimize any potential risk so number four is precautionary measures many practitioners adhere to professional guidelines and standards of practice to prioritize the safety and well-being of their clients particularly pre pregnant women as such they may have established protocols that include avoiding certain reflexology acupuncture and massage points during pregnancy to reduce the risk of adverse outcomes and then number five is patient preference okay so some pregnant women May uh prefer to avoid certain types of stimulation especially if they are concerned about potential risk to themselves or their baby practitioners May uh respect their clients preferences and concerns by refraining from working on the ankle points during U pregnancy while avoiding ankle points during pregnancy is a common practice it's essential for pregnant women to communicate openly with their health care providers and complimentary therapy uh practitioners about specific needs and concerns ultimately decisions regarding the use of massage acupuncture and reflexology during pregnancy should be made on an individual basis taking in account the women's overall health medical history and preferences so as you can see from the research there is no definite yes or no answer here maybe a lot of this came from uh reflexologists and in their practices have found that over stimulation might have caused um adverse you know uh effects right things like that but I think the most important thing is filling out the intake form in finding out how their pregnancy is going right I think that's more important because then you can decide if you know over stimulation on certain parts of the foot might not be beneficial for them right so questions like you know um first of all you know are they pregnant okay um second if yes um have they had uh you know another pregnancy before right and how was that you know maybe they have a history of um problems getting pregnant um problems keeping the baby right miscarriages um you know just how is their pregnancy going are they feeling okay are they you know is anything unstable about the pregnancy or past pregnancies right that will determine if you need to work on the points or not and as an aside here which I'll talk more about um when I answer the actual direct questions I got um is like there's so much more to work on the feet right you just we're just talking about a couple points around the ankle and if you just don't do them you know you don't need to you don't need to there's so many other things that you can work on if we're just talking about these this fear around these ankle points it shouldn't be that scary right like for myself and my the way that I was taught is um I mentioned it before but in the first trimester be a little bit cautious and then also um if the you know pre mature um babies if they have a history of that as well I didn't mention that before but there you go my teacher um just said you know don't you don't need to be afraid of all that stuff because uh she said something that was really kind of made sense to me and uh reflexology is meant to and its focus is meant to normalize to help the body you know get rid of stress and just relax and things like that so just by pushing a couple ankle points causes something like a miscarriage there's something that's not that's probably was going to happen anyway in you know the nature of the pregnancy on the other side of things too you don't want to be directly responsible if you know there's some kind of issue there with the baby and the mom and and and kind of the topic of miscarriage you just don't want to be like okay they came for reflexology and then they had a miscarriage as a reflexologist you don't want to be um the cause of it even though probably you were not avoiding the ankle points then you can kind of say oh well I didn't work on those points if something does happen right so that's also I think a cautionary thing that has been put into um I forget what point it was but I think number three or something um being protocols that were passed down um in reflexology just to be to keep the practitioner safe and also um allow the client to feel more safe that you're not going to overstimulate um something right so anyway that's just a little aside okay so let's get into finally answering the question here so here's the question my name is Sam I came across your YouTube channel I loved your videos I checked out your website and got a free online course which is the desserts which was great and I loved it and then I purchased your in session course and found it really very helpful for me the desserts is um what I call the warm-ups or kind of bigger movements and stuff like that uh but I call them desserts because the cool thing about it is they're like d stressor so if you take the word desserts you have de and then you have zerts but zerts backwards is stress so they're kind of like destressors the ins session course is I had a buddy of mine just film me do a complete session right of all the main points and so I just start at the top and I keep going down I don't really explain too much about what I'm doing it's kind of like an overview of an entire session I just don't go into detail on you know how I position myself the question is can I perform the those techniques on my wife's feet during pregnancy so the Desserts Plus in session Section 1 Section 2 and section 3 if yes are all those techniques considered safe any exception or something to avoid while massaging and Pregnant for example pregnant women with soul and feet okay so my answer is yes you can do all the techniques are safe section three is where the um the points that I pointed out at the very beginning are okay so we have ankle points here which is the ovaries and then on the inside you have the uterus so um having all the information before now um you can choose to work on them or not that is the only cautionary um kind of points that you want to be um concerned with right but other than that all the desserts okay the desserts the warm-ups are amazing because they are bigger movements right and you can here's a couple here that I'm just showing you and you can move like this and um what I would suggest working on here is these big movements using the foot kind of like a pump right cuz you did mention uh swollen feet so during pregnancy um it's really common to get swollen all the way around here and something to check too I wish that I had taken pictures of my wife's feet when she was pregnant but there was actually a pronounced bump there right and so that was really interesting I wish I don't know why I didn't take pictures of it or um video of it but I didn't um but just check there for fun right check and you you may notice uh a little bit of a change but the ankle around here gets swollen there's lots of fluid that can build up um the bones of the feet become tired uh and one of the reasons why is because you know you you gain weight right because now you have an extra you know person inside that you're carrying around and so there's more pressure down on um you know gravity right it's pulling you down more and you're getting you know sore muscles joints in your feet get a little bit tender and things like that like the pregnant body is absolutely amazing there's so many things that happen right all the joints kind of loosen and and get ready for the baby to come out so um you feel all this stuff all over your body right it's not just in your hip area so working reflexology I think is amazing thing and I worked on my wife um as much as I could right to help um just feel comfortable because it can be really uncomfortable to be pregnant right so um avoiding to do reflexology alog together for me is not an option I think it's really great to work so just knowing the stuff that you can work and what would be beneficial things like pumping things like you know really loosening up the whole foot playing with every little you know toe to make it move um if you do want to work on the ankle points rather than an active stimulation you know working that that really getting in there and working um you can do more of a sedative approach which is just kind of holding so if there's lots of fluid around here you can kind of just hold for a bit move hold move for a bit and kind of thinking always of moving fluid up the leg right so you can do kind of massage techniques also in the comment here uh notice he didn't use any sort of mass massage oil um you don't recommend using it so traditionally in reflexology I don't use oil or lotion except for at the end of the session when I do more of a massage because I just think that is just a nice way to to end the reason why I don't is because I want to feel everything because my thumbs are my eyes and ears okay so I want to feel and listen for anything and if I have oil or massage lotion I slip and I don't I just don't hear and see as clearly um but in your case I would definitely put on some kind of massage and then be pushing fluid up her leg right as you're working right so yeah feel free to do that I hopefully that answers your question um I have you know in another comment I got another user wondering about back pain and foot pain during pregnancy and then in saying I know that there are points we need to avoid other otherwise is it okay so it's kind of a similar question lots of people have these like oh yeah there's these points that you're supposed to avoid um but other than that is it okay to work on the feet and yes I believe it is okay um so you now know that the points are right there and there's so many other things like I said before that you can work and you don't have to be so concerned about and fearful of pushing a point and causing the world to explode but to have caution and understanding for your client needs and you know filling out that intake form like I said you'll be more educated and more um kind of caring to um with your decision on to work or stimulate ankle points right but there's so much more you can work there's so many other issues that come up when somebody's pregnant that um need address right so hopefully this video has helped um confuse you more maybe um but uh that is my take on it again I do not specialize in you know fertility and and uh this sort of stuff so anybody who does please if there is something that I'm really missing here and that it is quite um you know important to address these points or not touch them uh please let me know in the comments below and um yeah I would love to know more about it but as I was doing research I couldn't find any evidencebased that um like so yes or no to work on the points right there's sort of this gray area that's you know been passed down through generations of reflexologists and acupuncturist and you know centuries even of uh that just to be called cous around these points right that's what I could get from it and so it's up to you right to um be be the master of uh your points and what you need to work well with the client's permission obviously but anyway there you go um hopefully that was helpful uh yeah until next time this is Adam Thomas from balancing touch remember to keep those feet especially the pregnant feet happy bye-bye if you're interested in learning more about reflexology you could subscribe to the channel below it's also very helpful to hit that like button and feel free to share it with anybody who you think might be interested in it you can find my online courses reflexology charts and other reflexology goodies over on my website which is balancing touch. CA thank you so much for watching today and if you have some more time you can check out some other videos till next time this is Adam Thomas from balancing touch.com