Stanford study shows acupuncture helps relieve major depression in pregnant women
14 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
in Acupuncture Tags: Acupuncture, depression, research
Stanford Unive
rsity’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences published a study in the March issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology that looked at how well acupuncture could effect major depressive disorder in pregnant women. The researchers compared a group that received acupuncture specific for their major depression with an acupuncture control group and a massage control group, both of which were not specific for depression. The acupuncture group showed a “greater rate of decrease in symptom severity” than both the controls groups individually and combined; and there was not a significant difference between the control groups. They noted that “The short acupuncture protocol demonstrated symptom reduction and a response rate comparable to those observed in standard depression treatments of similar length…” This is great news for women with major depression who can not or do not want to take pharmaceuticals for their depression while pregnant.
This particular study had a methods that helped establish more credibility for the results. First, the study involved a fairly large number of subjects, 150 women. Second, the researchers worked hard to establish good controls by having junior acupuncturists performing acupuncture protocols prescribed by senior acupuncturist so that the juniors did not know which group they were giving acupuncture to. Additionally, the treatments were given in 12 sessions over 8 weeks which is consistent with typical clinical practice. Altogether these methods make for a seemingly solid acupuncture study, as well as another example of how acupuncture can be a safe and effective treatment option.
