After hours of kneeling in front of my couch letting my immense pregnant belly hang down in the hopes that my soon-to-be-daughter would readjust her position in my uterus and move away from my back (no labor is easy, but back labor really sucks), I finally gave in and called my midwife in the hopes of getting some relief. Despite it being about 9:30 at night (I'd been in labor over 12 hours), she told me to come in and she'd see what she could do to help.
I loved my midwives, and if I were to ever have the misfortune of having another baby I'd definitely use one again. If I remember correctly (this was almost 12 years ago, after all), there are two basic groups of midwives: direct entry and nurse. Direct entry midwives have undergone midwifery training, whereas a nurse midwife was a nurse first and then chose midwifery as a specialty. My midwives were direct entry, and as such did not have hospital privelages or a specific relationship with a doctor. They did their work out of their midwifery clinic. All well and good, as long as you don't want drugs. Direct entry midwives don't have the ability to prescribe anything, including pain relievers. Boy, howdy, did I want pain relief!
My midwife suggested that she could prick my lower back with a pin coated in bee venom. She said it would hurt for a few minutes like a bee sting, but that it was supposed to be very effective at relieving pain. At that point, I would have let her cut off Thane's small toe if it would have made me feel better, so I said, "go for it." Indeed, after a few minutes of bee-sting pain, I was given sweet relief. Unfortunately, the back labor pain was back by morning (Rowan was stubborn even before she was born), but you don't need to hear the rest of my 51-hour labor saga.
The reason I brought this memory up is that I recently read an interesting book called Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper. Author C. Marina Marchese's short book briefly describes how she became fascinated with beekeeping and eventually started her own hives. The majority of the book, however, is given over to the lessons. From her immensely readable mini-essays, I learned about types of bees, the structure of a hive, bee parasites, types of honey, and much, much more. I was inspired to try honey made by bees who had been feeding on nectar from different types of plants, and to learn more about apitherapy.
According the the website of The American Apitherapy Society, Inc., apitherapy or “bee therapy” (from the Latin apis which means bee) is the medicinal use of products made by honeybees, including bee venom, honey, pollen, royal jelly, propolis, and beeswax. Without my even knowing it, I made use of apitherapy during labor.
I'll be you've heard that honey is good for a sore throat - a common use of apitherapy. I'll vouch for the efficacy of pain relief from bee venom. Practitioners also claim that products from bees are useful in the treatment of (this list is copied from the AAS website page on conditions treated):
Immune system dysfunction or problems
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
Rheumatoid arthritis
Hay fever
Neurologic problems
MS
ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease)
Shingles
Scar pain
Musculoskeletal problems
Arthritis
Gout
Tendonitis, bursitis
Spinal pain
Infectious problems
Bacterial, viral, and fungal illnesses
Traumas
Wounds, acute and chronic
Burns
Sprains
Fractures
Tumors
Benign
Malignant (cancer)
The AAS website notes that this list does not imply that these conditions are cured, nor does this list include the totality of conditions that apitherapy addresses.
From what I've heard, keeping bees in Alaska is not easy - it's too cold for too long, but I'm fascinated by the whole idea. I foresee some more research on my part about apitherapy, and a lot more eating of honey.
