Can I use cupping during confinement?

Cupping is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy that mainly uses the principle of heat flow to use cups and fire to form air pressure on the human body, causing local congestion on the surface of the human body. The function of cupping is to remove moisture from the human body and unblock the meridians. Many women feel stiffness in their body during the confinement period. They wonder if they can do cupping during the confinement period.

Can I do cupping or scraping after giving birth?

Can I do cupping or scraping after giving birth? It is best to wait 6 months to 1 year after giving birth before doing cupping or scraping. Those with good physical condition can do it for half a year. Those with weak physical condition or who have not recovered well after giving birth are better to choose moxibustion.

Due to the deficiency of Qi and blood and insufficient vital energy after childbirth, if you do not take good care of yourself at this time, or you are greedy for coolness, or feel wind-cold, or are not careful in your daily life, or do not rest properly, etc., all of these may lead to the invasion of evil wind during the confinement period and cause postpartum diseases.

Appropriate cupping or scraping is acceptable, but while drawing out blood stasis and phlegm, it also consumes the body's vital energy, so it can cause some people to become increasingly weak. If this treatment method is used excessively or frequently, it will be counterproductive, so it is best to wait until the body recovers before cupping or scraping.

When doing scraping, you should avoid wind and keep warm. When the room temperature is low, you should try to reduce the exposure of the body parts. When the temperature is high in summer, you should not do scraping near an electric fan or in places with convection wind. Because the sweat pores of the skin are opened during scraping, if the wind and cold evil are encountered, the evil qi can directly enter the body through the opened pores, which will not only affect the therapeutic effect of scraping, but also cause new diseases due to the exposure to wind and cold.

The advantages and disadvantages of scraping

Benefits of Gua Sha:

Scraping is one of the methods of health preservation in traditional Chinese medicine. In our daily life, many people use scraping to eliminate evil spirits, dispel wind and cold, enhance immunity, etc. It is a very good health preservation method. Experts point out that scraping achieves health-preserving effects through benign stimulation of the body surface, and its benefits are very obvious. The common benefits of scraping are:

1. Scraping your hands and feet can help promote the flow of qi and unblock the meridians. Women often experience cold hands and feet. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that this is mainly related to insufficient yang in the body or poor circulation of qi and blood. You can first scrape your palms with the surface of the scraping board. After your palms become warm, use the grooves on the scraping board to scrape all sides of your fingers, from the base to the fingertips, scraping 5 to 10 times in each direction. This can effectively promote qi and unblock the meridians.

2. Scraping the abdomen can help with bowel movements. Long-term constipation not only affects the digestion and absorption function, but also causes the body to absorb a large amount of toxins. The patient can use the scraping board to scrape the abdomen from top to bottom and from left to right. It should be noted that if there is sagging of internal organs, it should be scraped from bottom to top.

3. Scraping the area around the eyes can improve eyesight. Many people do eye exercises and are very familiar with several of the acupoints. Using scraping instead of finger massage can better stimulate the acupoints. You should first use a scraping comb to press the Jingming point (on both sides of the nose bridge, about half a centimeter away from the inner corner of the eye), and then use the Jingming point as the starting point and the outer corner of the eye as the end point, and scrape from the upper and lower eye sockets respectively. This can effectively improve the circulation of qi and blood in the meridians around the eyes and relieve visual fatigue.

4. Scraping the neck can relax muscles and promote blood circulation. Neck and shoulder discomfort is an occupational disease for desk workers. Gua Sha can relax muscles and promote blood circulation, and improve local blood stasis. Patients should choose three routes, namely, from the midpoint of the posterior hairline to the Dazhui point (the depression below the spinous process of the seventh cervical vertebra), and from the upper edges of the two outer corners of the posterior hairline to the left and right shoulders respectively. In addition, scraping this area when you have a cold can also help dispel wind and evil.

Disadvantages of scraping:

1. Long-term scraping without restraint will cause damage to the skin tissue. It will not only fail to help relieve fatigue, but will also increase the burden on the body.

2. For people with skin ulcers or other skin diseases, scraping is not a pleasure at all, but a torture. It will cause greater damage to the already fragile skin tissue and even cause infection, aggravating the condition.

3. For people with blood diseases, or friends with heart or liver problems, scraping should be avoided as much as possible, as it can easily cause greater harm to the body.