Stone Massage for Pregnancy

Last weekend I took a class called Hydrostone at the Colorado School of Healing Arts, my beloved alma mater. It’s been five years since I took classes at CSHA and being there reminds me how much I love being in school – learning new things and being around positive, inquisitive energy.

What I learned from the 700-hour program as CSHA, as well as my advanced certification in prenatal, labor and postpartum massage from the Boulder College of Massage Therapy, has been enough to build a strong clientele and keep every massage interesting. But I wanted to be able to offer something new to clients, and also learn another kind of bodywork. I actually have a very long list of all the classes I’d like to take, and Hydrostone was the first one that worked with my schedule so I went with it. I initially just wanted to learn hot stone massage, but with this class, I got to work with cold stones, too – something I had never even heard of in massage.

I couldn’t have asked for a better instructor. Michele Hodapp has a huge personality, is intuitive and the most stone massage-knowledgeable person I’ve ever encountered.  We started with doing a Swedish massage with the stones – yes we actually massage with the stones, when all along I thought they were just placed in certain areas while other areas were being massaged. I couldn’t believe how easily the muscles melted under the stones with not much pressure – hot stone massage could possibly save my hands, forearms and lower back – the three body parts that get the brunt of all my deep tissue work. We also got to practice deeper work with the stones, as well as energy-based work that cleared the chakras and meridians.

What I learned that surprised me the most was that I can use hot stones on pregnant clients. I assumed since heat treatments are usually contraindicated for pregnant folks, so as to not increase their core temperature, that hot stones would be out of the question. Much to my delight, I discovered that as long as the stones are kept at a low temperature (with the water at about 120 degrees), hot stones can be a great way to work out the aches and pains of pregnancy. That opened up a whole world of possibilities for me. I’ve discovered through the births I’ve attended that one of the reasons that baby doesn’t drop into the pelvis causing the cervix to dilate, is because the muscles and ligaments in the pelvis are tight – due to stress, tension, fear, previous injury, etc. By opening up the pelvic muscles throughout pregnancy with hot stones, I can better prepare my clients’ pelvises for the openness they need for an easier birth. I’ve had many clients who would have loved a nice warm stone in their piriformis – I wished I had learned stone massage earlier!

It is important to note that a hot stone massage would look very different on a pregnant client, and would only be done with healthy low-risk mamas carrying healthy low-risk babies. Since I only do side lying position for a prenatal massage, stones would never be placed on the back and left there, nor would stones ever be used on the belly. Hot stones heated in water above 120 degrees may increase blood flow to a point that would put strain on a pregnant person’s body, whose blood volume increases during pregnancy. Stones heated in 120 degree water, however, would serve to stimulate the part of our nervous system that relaxes us  – the parasympathetic nervous system. The stones would be constantly in motion – mostly on the neck, back, hands, feet and jaw (relaxing the jaw relaxes the pelvis!), with spot compression on the pelvis and possibly some light work on the IT band. Cool stones used on the body after a hot stone application might also feel good to a mama whose temperature is already running high, which is common throughout pregnancy.

I can’t wait to practice stone massage on pregnant and non-pregnant clients – who wants to be my guinea pig?