Posted on 6th Mar 2010 @ 2:45 PM

Recent research work at Stanford University in California has approved acupuncture can be an effective native method to reduce depression in pregnant women.

Depression will pose serious health risks to mother and baby during pregnancy, according to Rachel Manber, a Stanford University psychiatry professor. "Depression is associated with suffering, can be associated with suicide or wishing to not live." She indicates that depression has been linked to babies who are more difficult to console.

Alternative treatment is safety

The most pregnant avoid taking medication to protect depression while they're pregnant because of safety concerns. That makes finding an alternative treatment necessary.

Acupuncture has been used to treat other medical conditions during pregnancy, like back pain, production delay and nausea. It's also used to treat depression in other patients.

Ancient practice carries out good result

After eight weeks acupuncture treatment, a good result has been found buy the researchers. "What we found is that women who received the acupuncture for depression had a greater reduction in symptom severity and a greater proportion of women have responded to treatment than the control groups," Manber says.

The effect of acupuncture has been found as equal as the current treatment approaches, counseling and medication. The researcher say:  "We that found 63 percent of the women who received the acupuncture for depression ended up responding to treatment, which is really at the high end of response rates for treatment for depression in outpatients."

Manber says the mechanisms of how acupuncture therapy works still need to study further.