Acupressure Wristbands Ease Morning Sickness
Pregnant women reported a significant drop in severity of morning sickness when they wore special wristbands that make use of the ancient Chinese art of acupressure, a study says.
More than 60% of the women said their nausea and vomiting were reduced or eliminated by the bands, which pressed on a point just above the wrist.
When the women wore placebo wristbands that did not press on the point, only about 30% said their nausea and vomiting lessened, showing the effect of the working bands was not just psychological.
The study was reported in the November issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology by Drs. D. De Aloysio and P. Penacchioni of the obstetrics and gynecology department at Bologna University in Italy.
The device, an elastic bracelet marketed under the name Sea-Band, is manufactured in England and the United States, where it’s sold primarily in pharmacies. The British-based Sea-Band International Inc. plans to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to advertise the bands as relief for nausea after surgery, according to Boston-based marketing director Leonard Nihan.
Morning sickness, which usually occurs in the early months of pregnancy, may be experienced by up to 80% of women, said Dr. Benjamin Sachs, chief of obstetrics-gynecology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.
Standard treatment uses drugs or hypnosis, he said. But doctors are cautious about prescribing medicines in the first three months of pregnancy, when the fetus’s organs and limbs are forming, Sachs said.
“I think the study says there’s something interesting here,” Sachs said of the wristband research. Few practitioners of conventional medicine have experience with acupressure, but if the wristbands prove easy and effective, he said, “I would applaud it.”
Acupressure is used to relieve pain and produce other effects by applying pressure at points where major nerves are close to the skin.
The study involved 60 women in their seventh to 12th week of pregnancy. All experienced nausea and 73% also reported vomiting. Six women did not complete the experiment.
The women were split into two groups. Both groups went through the same experiment, receiving various combinations of real and placebo bands. Each woman wore a band of one kind or another on both wrists throughout the study, changing bands at 72-hour intervals and then reporting on their symptoms.
The real bands had a button that pressed on a point on the inside of the arm just above the wrist. In placebo bands the button was blunted so it did not apply pressure. The women were not told which bands were which.
When they wore a working band on either or both wrists, 64% to 69% of the women said their symptoms had disappeared or were less intense than they had been before the experiment.
When the two groups of women wore only placebo bands, the percentages reporting improvement were 29% and 31%.
Symptoms disappeared completely in about 30% of women when they wore at least one working band, compared to less than 8% when they had just the placebo bands.
Editor’s note: Consumers wanting to know where to purchase Sea-Bands can call Sea-Band International Inc. toll-free at 1-800-922-0932, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST, or write the company at 589 Minot Ave., Auburn, Me., 04210. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $9.95.
