What I tell a pregnant woman in the first five minutes
November 2026 · 3 min read · By Vanessa Chugani
A pregnancy Reiki session does not start on the table. It starts with a conversation, and that conversation decides most of what happens next.
How far along, and how that changes the hour
The first thing I ask is how many weeks. Not because it is small talk, but because the session changes shape depending on the answer. Early pregnancy and late pregnancy ask for different positions, different pacing, and different conversation. A session in the first trimester tends to be quieter. By the third, most women need to be propped up on their side with pillows long before any hands come near them, because lying flat has stopped being comfortable. The middle of the pregnancy is usually the easiest of the three, just before her size starts dictating the position for everyone in the room.
I also ask what the pregnancy has been like so far. Easy, difficult, watched closely by a doctor, uneventful. None of that changes whether Reiki is appropriate. It changes how I talk to her for the rest of the conversation, and what I listen for once we begin.
What this is, and what it is not
I say this part plainly and then I move on: Reiki is rest and support, it is not a treatment for any medical condition, it does not diagnose anything, and it sits alongside her antenatal care rather than replacing it. Most women already understand this. The ones who do not need to hear it before anything else, so that nothing afterwards gets mistaken for a medical claim.
What I say more, and what matters more to most women in the room, is what the hour is actually for. Pregnancy puts a body under a specific kind of strain: disrupted sleep, a nervous system on alert, hips and a lower back carrying weight they are not used to, a mind that will not switch off at 2am. That is exactly the territory Reiki works in. If anyone wants the research behind that, this page on Reiki during pregnancy sets it out properly.
Who else is in the room
Partners ask to come along more often than people expect, and I have to say no more often than I would like. A pregnancy session is built around one body and one nervous system, and a second person changes the room even sitting quietly in the corner. If a couple wants to be in the room together, that needs to be booked as a couples session rather than added on the day, so I ask early and send anyone who wants that to get in touch and ask before the appointment, not after.
I also ask about anyone else who needs to know she is coming: a partner who is nervous about Reiki, a doctor who has asked to be kept informed of anything new. Not because I need their approval, but because a woman who has had to defend her own decision to be here arrives already tense, and tense is the opposite of what we are trying to do.
What happens once we start
Once the talking stops, the session itself is simple: hands resting lightly, usually with her propped on her side in later pregnancy, for the same length of time as any other pregnancy Reiki session. Some women feel heat or a kind of heaviness settling in. Some feel very little and fall asleep. Both are normal, and I say that before we start too, because a woman who thinks she is supposed to feel something specific will spend the hour checking instead of resting.
Some women book once, when something specific is bothering them that week: a hip that will not settle, or nights that will not stay asleep. Others want a steadier rhythm across more than one trimester, which is worth discussing honestly rather than booking something she has not thought through. Either way, the first conversation is where that gets decided, not the day of.
It settles the position she lies in, how much talking happens during the hour versus after it, and whether anyone else is in the room. All of that happens before a single hand goes anywhere near her.