Questions and Answers on “Nurturing the fetus”
In response to questions from interested potential students about the upcoming course on “Nurturing the Fetus: A Course on the Ten Months of Pregnancy in Classical Chinese Medical Literature,” Andrew Loosely and I have created an informational video about the course, which you can find AT THIS LINK: https://imperialtutor.kartra.com/page/nurturing-the-fetus-intro.
In addition, here are some questions we have received, and answers we have written. Some of the questions and answers have been edited for the sake of clarity, brevity, and privacy. For each answer, we identify by name which one of us wrote that particular response. Please feel free to get in touch with either of us if you have more questions or are not quite sure how to understand our answers.
Question (about direct clinical applicability)
I'm thinking about your course a lot. However, I've got only one question: how practical will your course be? Will I be able to give support to pregnant women straight after the course?
Of course, I'm not talking here about complex pregnancies with pathologies, as I'm aware it requires experience, but will I be able to help women who would love to support the fetus and themselves from day 1?
Answer by Andrew
Sabine and I are presenting the classical information, taken from the three leading pregnancy treatment texts ranging from 168 BC to the 10th century AD, and discussing its use in the modern clinic. We’re going to cover the content in 2 ways:
1. The historical context and content of these texts - mostly Sabine, along with her thoughts and experience from translating classical texts for decades.
2. The modern clinical usage of this information - mostly presented by me - through analysis of each month and the suggested principles and how they can be used in the clinic.
The texts give us specific guidelines on the usage and avoidance of channels, foods, lifestyle and emotional aspects, along with two herbal prescriptions for each month for very specific issues that could present in that month of pregnancy. I will analyse these two formulae for each month, and discuss where and when to use them along with my own clinical experience too.
This course should be suitable for you, from what you have described, but please do also email Sabine if you’d like her input too. We want to make sure that everyone that joins will be happy with the level of knowledge we’re sharing, and that it is helpful to you in the clinic too of course :)
Answer by Sabine
Thank you for asking and yes, absolutely! I am somebody who is very careful about talking anybody into anything I produce because I really want you only to join if you end up getting a tangible benefit from it. It is a great question you ask, and I am happy to answer with a resounding yes, no matter whether you are an acupuncture- or herb-based practitioner and what your level of experience is. Much of what we will be discussing is actually general pathology and physiology, the signs and symptoms that you should expect to see or watch out for in each month, and how to support a healthy pregnancy. Andrew has decades of clinical experience and is extremely safety conscious and ethical. Also, I am always struck by how much of the information found in these early texts is the sort of common-sense advice that would sound familiar to most grannies and midwives in most traditional cultures, like protecting the woman from stress, harmful emotions, and heavy lifting in the first trimester, or later encouraging her to move around a lot and let loose in every sense of that word towards the end of her pregnancy.
Question (about missing live sessions and acupuncture vs. herbs)
How exciting to hear about this new course! I am interested in participating but have a few reservations, mostly because I will be doing a volunteer trip for 10 days in March. I understand we will have access until May 1st so hopefully it will be possible.
Also, I am a home-birth midwife and acupuncturist but have not studied nor do I practice Chinese herbs. My sense is that I would learn so much from you both about the ancient Chinese understanding of the physiology of pregnancy and hopefully some applicable acupuncture and lifestyle tools to support my patients with. I guess I just want to make sure that the course isn't mostly focused on herbal formulas because that might be too complicated for me.
Answer by Sabine
We'd love to have you, especially given your background in midwifery. Missing 10 days is not a problem as you can catch up and all sessions are recorded. That part really depends on how busy you usually are and what the timing of your trip is and your ability to work around that. We will work with you.
Regarding your reservations about herbs vs. acupuncture, one of our sources (Sun Simiao) does cover two formulas for each month, BUT our focus will be on the overall understanding of pregnancy from month to month. Equal weight is given to acupuncture and moxibustion, and our emphasis is also on approaching the physiology and pathology of each month from a theoretical basis. We are well aware of the fact that most practitioners of Chinese medicine these days are acupuncturists AND are not trained well enough in medicinal formulas to use treatments of this strength during pregnancy in particular. That is actually one of the reasons why we designed this course to begin with, because there are now people out there teaching these formulas without the proper historical context or regard for the strength of the formulas, and that is just not safe. So for your second concern, I can definitely say that you will be in good company as somebody with reservations about the herbal part of this information. Lifestyle, diet, activities, recognizing each month's signs and symptoms, all of those will be relevant to you, I am quite sure.
Question (about ABORM CEU points)
Hi there, it’s great that you are offering 15 NCCAOM PDAs, including 1 safety and 3 ethics points. I am wondering whether you are also going to give ABORM CEUs since that is what I really need and I would love to take your course.
Answer by Sabine
Thanks for that request and for bringing ABORM to my attention. I have taught plenty of other courses accredited through ABORM, I know that it’s a great organization and I love working with them, so YES! I am an accredited ABORM course provider, and (update as of February 2) the application for this course has just been approved, I am happy to report!
Question (about herbs vs acupuncture, classical vs. TCM, and ten lunar months)
I watched the introductory video about the course. I am curious if Andrew will be talking about the formulas only or the acupuncture points as well. Does he use classical formulas with TCM herbs at times, or does he do mostly tcm or modern formulas?
I am looking at my notes from [another teacher who shall remain unnamed], and it says '10 lunar months of the Tai Chan Shu, quoted in Xu Zhi Cai’s Month by Month Prescriptions for Nurturing the Fetus, itself quoted in Sun Simiao’s Qian Jin Fang, translation by Sabine Wilms ' Will you and him talk about the 10 Lunar months in more detail during the course?
Answer by Sabine
Great questions. Yes, absolutely, we will be talking about the channels and acupuncture points, as well as lifestyle, dietetics, and other modalities. And the two formulas for each month are for PATHOLOGIES in pregnancy, but at least as importantly, we will be teaching what a healthy pregnancy looks like and how to support that, as well as what to look out for in terms of symptoms that need to be addressed but also what to expect and support. We are really teaching the principles behind the development of the fetus for each month.
And in terms of herbs, Andrew works with classical formulas all the time. He is a classically oriented practitioner, more so from my perspective of somebody who has my nose in the classics all day long, than most other teachers who call themselves “classical.” Not narrow-minded like certain other classical practitioners who ONLY use Han dynasty formulas, he is more practical than that, but his way of thinking is very much classical. That is why I so appreciate his take on the material and his ability to analyze the Sun Simiao formulas based on the classical formulas.
The Taichanshu is not quoted in Xu Zhicai's text, which is the information quoted in Sun Simiao's text. The Taichanshu is a text that was discovered in a tomb in Mawangdui that was closed in 168 BCE and was lost long before the time of either Xu Zhicai or Sun Simiao, only being rediscovered in the 1970s. And the only published translation of that material is found in Donald Harper’s Early Chinese Medical Literature. My own translation of the Taichanshu is copyrighted, was not published as part of my dissertation, and has not been made publicly available. While I have taught it and shared it with individual practitioners and friends, this has always been with the clearly expressed limitation that it is for their personal use only and not for them to share with anybody else. Any teacher who cites my translation in their course is in direct violation of US copyright law. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.
And yes, we will be going through each of the ten months, sometimes doing a special lecture on an individual month, sometimes covering two months per lecture.
Answer by Andrew
Many thanks for your questions.
The texts that we are working from do not give us any specific acupuncture or moxibustion points to use during pregnancy. Instead, they instruct us on the active channel, front-Mu points, and back-Shu points, that must be avoided in that month of pregnancy. This information varies through the 10 months, as each month correlates to a specific channel that must be avoided.
In terms of my herbal medicine use and background: I only use ‘old’ formulae, and do not use any modern formulae or approaches in my work. Even though I regularly provide my Chinese medicine support alongside bio-medical treatments, such as IVF and other medicated protocols, I still use a traditional approach to Chinese medicine, and not a modern TCM approach.
My practice of Chinese medicine gynecology, fertility, and pregnancy is based on the theory of Qi, Blood, Yin and Yang, and the attunement of the menses, along with other traditional approaches and considerations that include external aspects too, such as the Chinese calendar/seasons, Chinese astrology/Bāzì, Qí Mén Dùn Jiǎ/divination and date choices, and Fēngshuǐ.
For many years I studied some of the methods that are promoted as “Classical” medicine, such as the 6 confirmations, and the “circle”, but came to realize (through working with Sabine) that these methods are not actually spelled out as such in the classical literature but are based on much later teachings that INTERPRET the classical formulas in an effort to make sense of them. I have therefore decided to not adopt them as a core of my treatment, as I have no ancient or older references to work with. My approach is simple, and is aligned with the traditional texts such as Cháo Yuánfāng’s 6th century Zhū Bìng Yuán Hòu Lùn (諸病源候論 – Origin and Indicators of Disease – specifically the chapters on female health and gynecology), as well as Chén Zìmíng’s 13th century Fù Rén Dà Quán Liáng Fāng (婦人大全良方 – Compendium of Good Remedies for Women). These texts, along with the work of Lǐ Dōngyuán, Zhāng Jǐngyuè and Fù Qīngzhǔ, and the training I received with a selection of Chinese doctors and professors in my earlier days, form the basis of my theory and clinical practice.
For each of the 10 months of pregnancy that we will cover, we will review 2 herbal formulae, thought to be from around the 6th century. These are for emergency use only, and so we will analyze each formula in terms of its herbs and construction, its appropriateness and safety of use today in the modern clinic, along with the associated signs and symptoms for choosing the formula.
As we will have a mixed group of practitioners, we will also cover the dietary, lifestyle and emotional recommendations that the texts instruct on, as well as the key principles behind each month. I will also be happy to discuss more about the herbal medicine maintenance approach I use with my patients throughout pregnancy, during the live Q+A discussions.
I hope that answers it for you, but please let us know if not (:
If you still have questions,
visit the course page here,
get in touch with either Andrew (through his website) or myself (through my CONTACT link here), or
And if you are ready to jump in, click the button below to register for the course:
