This is down to you and where you are in your pregnancy. We tend to continue with our clients in their first trimester weekly, then knock the sessions back a little in your second trimester and then ramp it back up as you approach labour.

But, as with all things, this is an ideal circumstance, it comes down to a multitude of different factors. We can work this out between us when you come for your sessions.

We can never guarantee anything. Maternity reflexology is like any drug, your body, your lifestyle and your stress levels will all dictate how it works for you specifically. However, what we will say is that we’ve been practising pregnancy foot reflexology at Essential Feeling for years now. We’ve never had someone come in for help with morning sickness for it not to have disappeared within a few sessions.

Maternity reflexology is a great way to cut down your labour time, we have fabulous experiences with our clients having super quick times.

However, many of our clients come to see us for a few sessions just before they are due to be induced. This is because they’re trying to avoid induction and want to go into labour naturally.

What we need to say straight off here is that if your baby isn’t ready to come, no amount of reflexology will help induce labour. This is because maternity reflexology works by balancing your body, removing those kinks in the hose pipe that we talked about earlier. But, if the kinks simply aren’t there because the reason you’re not going into labour isn’t due to an imbalance, but more that your baby just isn’t ready yet, then labour won’t happen.

That said, when we’ve worked on our pregnant ladies in the past, we see great success. Ideally, if you give us a bigger lead time, then that’s better. Many of our ladies feel cramping actually during their maternity reflexology session. Also, our ladies will often find that they don’t need the same pain medication during their labour that other mothers they know needed too and this is backed up by research. A 1992 study here in the UK of 64 first time mothers showed that they enjoyed the same benefits of maternity reflexology.

We wouldn’t start actively stimulating labour until after the 37th week unless your medical consultant advises us otherwise.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a whole world of benefit in having reflexology before this point. Reflexology is a safe therapy and if your body is balanced already, those kinks don’t develop in the hose pipe so we’re not battling to remove them post 37 weeks.

Of course, depending on our schedule. We’d be happy to. Research has shown that if you have maternity reflexology throughout your labour, then the hormones that we induce have been known to speed up your labour, regulate your contractions and ease pain.

A study cited by the Association of Reflexologists here in the UK concluded that “the results from this study indicate that reflexology can reduce the length of labour, labour pain intensity, postpartum haemorrhage and an improving Agpar score and that these can play a part in improving the health and satisfaction of the mothers.”

Yes of course. Miscarriage affects around 15% to 20% of pregnancies and in the US they quote as up to one quarter. Karen, your maternity reflexologist is experienced at working with mothers who have lost their child, either following IVF, miscarriage, or late stage stillbirths. Reflexology will help to balance you and if you’ve been taking drugs, it will also help your body to eradicate any waste from them so you can get back to your normal, strong self as fast as possible. She can also help you with your infertility if you’d like a little later down the line.

Having a baby can be a scary time. Karen is also a certified counsellor, so you can be sure that you have a safe place to let off steam. If this is what you feel you need.