Pregnancy is a momentous episode for mothers to be, yet,  the body changes can bring discomfort to most women. Massages offer relaxation, but pregnant women may better avoid them, warned a specialist at the Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine. Dr Khwanchai Visithanon has advised women who are less than three months pregnant to avoid massages because it may lead to miscarriage; and women at all stages of pregnancy to be cautious of massage.

While the massage parlours approved by Health Service Support Department were required to have qualified practitioners of traditional Thai medicine with at least 150 hours of training, Visithanon has further added that, if necessary, pregnant women should only seek out those where the masseurs have had at least 800 hours of training.

Waranyu Jamnongprasartporn, deputy public-health chief of Chiang Mai province has said that standard procedure requires masseurs to ascertain if their customers are pregnant or have any chronic disease before starting a massage, even as every massage parlour first needs a licence to operate.

Although, it is not possible to monitor every parlour in the province, the department has conducted random checks to boost customers’ safety.