Margarita was 39 weeks pregnant and due to give birth. She had severe back pain and was nervous about coping with the pain of labour. ‘How am I going to cope with the birth if I can’t even walk?’ she thought. ‘If I’m already in pain, how am I going to cope with the extra pain on top of that?’

Her lower back was sore and tense and there was a sharp pain going down her leg, making it painful to straighten. She couldn’t lie on her back at all; lying down was painful and so was turning over in bed. Margarita found herself limping and all her back muscles were sore ‘as if the bones have come apart; as if my hips are not going to support me any more’. It especially felt as if her hips wouldn’t support her when she was walking downhill.

Margarita had a dream that she was crossing a bridge but the bridge collapsed. In her dream she fell into the water and drowned.

Margarita had come to Australia two years before to marry. She left behind the support of her job, family and friends that she had grown up with. She felt insecure when her husband was away on business and had a lot of uncertainty about the future. A number of years ago, she also had had back  problems. At that time the family business was in difficulty and there were no funds to support her. Margarita had also lost her mother at a young age.

Margarita’s dream and life experience tell a similar story to her physical complaints: one of pain and loss of support. This was a strong pointer to the choice of the homeopathic medicine.

Within two days of commencing homeopathic treatment, all the backache was gone, which was just as well because on the third day Margarita gave birth to a baby boy after only a three-hour labour. The back pain didn’t return in the following three months, during which we had contact.

LINDA BEAVER, professional homeopath, NSW