Apparently in late pregnancy your body starts to release massive amounts
of a hormone that makes all your muscles, joints and tendons start to
relax, as you prepare to give birth. Unfortunately, this includes
relaxation of the little valve at the top of your stomach. Since the valve
is loose, you tend to get terrible heartburn. I have been really lucky the
whole pregnancy and have had essentially no negative symptoms, but I have
this one in a bad way. So I was looking for some safe solutions and I saw
a bit about acupressure on the Pericardium 6. You press this point and it
is supposed to relieve all manner of nausea, heartburn, upset stomach,
etc. I didn't think there would be any harm in trying it, and it works
amazingly well, and pretty much immediately. If you want to try it for
your own symptoms, take three fingers from one hand and lay them across
the inside wrist on the other side. There is a small dent by the tendon
which you press and release. For heartburn in particular, it said to kind
of tap the area 20 times at one second intervals, and then switch sides.
The only two down sides were that it only seemed to last for about 10
minutes (though it is easy enough to just do it again), and that it seemed
to trigger Braxton Hicks contractions too! I don't know if that is
necessarily a bad thing, and could just be coincidence. Guess I will have
to monitor it throughout the day.