You might not be able to stop pregnancy symptoms like morning sickness or headache with the flip of a switch. But biofeedback therapy could potentially give you more control over managing these maladies and even act as a complementary treatment to more serious problems.
Here’s how the popular alternative treatment works, why it can be a good choice to consider during pregnancy and what you can really expect from biofeedback when you’re expecting.
What is biofeedback?
Biofeedback is a technique that you can learn to control some of your body processes like your heartbeat, blood pressure or skin temperature. By learning to recognize your body’s signals, you can work to alter them, which can potentially ease discomfort or relieve stress.
Biofeedback isn’t a pregnancy-specific therapy. But since it’s non-invasive, it’s very safe for pregnant women to try. And it may help soothe some of the symptoms you might be dealing with these days, like headaches, nausea, incontinence, mood swings or anxiety.
Generally, the way that biofeedback training starts is with a therapist who acts as a coach. He or she will place wearable, electrical sensors on your fingers, around your chest or stomach, or on your scalp, among other possible places. You’ll see or hear real-time information about your body, like how fast your heart is beating or how quickly you’re breathing.
The therapist helps you recognize your body’s signals — and change your body’s reaction accordingly — using various techniques. These include things like deep breathing, muscle relaxation and contraction exercises, mindfulness meditation and positive affirmations.
For example, if you were trying biofeedback for lower back pain, your therapist might apply sensors to your body that provide feedback on factors such as muscle tension, respiration, and skin temperature.
As the practitioner monitors the data these sensors provide, he or she would suggest exercises that help you learn how to relax the area, reducing muscle tension and easing your pain. Over time, you learn which techniques work well to alter the condition that you want to treat.
More In This Series
Ultimately, you should be able to control it all by yourself through these techniques, without needing the visual and aural feedback that a biofeedback machine provides.
How does biofeedback for pregnancy work?
It’s no secret that pregnancy can come with a laundry list of not-so-fun symptoms. Biofeedback may be able to help with problems like headaches. It can also be a safe and effective partner to Kegel exercises in preventing urinary incontinence, which is pretty common during pregnancy when there's a baby dancing on your bladder.
Other pregnancy symptoms that may be alleviated by biofeedback include insomnia, morning sickness, depression, anxiety and stress. As an added bonus? Though the research is far from conclusive, you might be able to apply some of the biofeedback techniques you learn during pregnancy to cope with pain while you’re in labor.
And while there are no guarantees that relaxation and stress reduction alone will keep you from developing preeclampsia or other blood-pressure disorders, research shows that biofeedback is a safe and effective way to at least attempt to keep blood pressure down.
The potential benefits mean that biofeedback can be a good option to explore during pregnancy when certain medications are more likely to be off the table. It’s noninvasive, and it doesn’t usually pose a risk for side effects. (Though it may not be appropriate for people with certain heart or skin conditions, so still check with your doctor before giving it a try.)
How helpful is biofeedback when you’re pregnant?
It’s hard to say for sure. Biofeedback is not a cure-all, and no matter how hard you try, you're not going to be able to control certain chronic physiological conditions completely.
For instance, while biofeedback might be a good way to help lower your blood pressure and stress levels if you've been diagnosed with preeclampsia, it might not be enough to get them where they need to be. So your practitioner may also recommend bed rest or another treatment.
And in most cases, biofeedback alone isn't going to be able to lower your blood-sugar levels if you've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, or stop other problems on its own.
That said, biofeedback can be useful when it comes to alleviating many not-so-serious pregnancy woes. Biofeedback is one of the most popular non-drug treatments for headaches, with the ability to ease headache intensity and frequency by as much as 60 percent. It’s also a good tool to have in your arsenal for nausea and vomiting, research suggests.
How much does biofeedback cost?
A single biofeedback session typically runs between $35 and $85. Biofeedback might be covered by your insurance, but that’s not the case for every plan. So it’s worth checking with your provider to find out how much of the bill, if any, they’re willing to foot.
Can you do biofeedback at home?
Biofeedback is best done under the guidance of a trained therapist at first. But after you’ve learned the techniques that work for you and how to apply them, you should be able to practice them on your own at home.
Biofeedback isn’t a panacea for pregnancy-related health problems. But it could help you cope with everyday ailments like stress, headaches or nausea. And you might be able to use it as a complement to other treatments for more serious issues like high blood pressure or gestational diabetes. Just get the green light from your doctor before giving it a try.
Yes 
No 
Trending On What to Expect
