IRANIAN STUDIES: Reflexology provides pain relief for pregnant women!

Reflexology is known as an alternative medicine involving ‘zone therapy’, which implicates the physical act of applying pressure to the feet, hands, or ears with specific thumb, finger, and hand techniques without the use of oil or lotion. Last year a study from Iran has pointed out that reflexology can produce significant results for women regarding pain intensity and the duration of labor in primiparous (women who are pregnant for the first time).

Likewise results for pregnant women had been reported from Iran in 2010.

However… it is important to be aware that there is no consensus among reflexologists on how reflexology is supposed to work; a unifying theme is the idea that areas on the foot correspond to areas of the foot, hand and ear, and that by manipulating these one can improve health through one’s qi.

Therefore it could be very well possible that these findings result from the same ‘human touch’ principles that are being used in haptonomy.

(A few more detailed hand reflexology charts are available in the article: ‘Key-elements of a hand reflexology chart‘)