There is a new face at the LifeThyme Wellness Clinic on Church Street in Hamilton.

Jamie Kimball, an American acupuncturist with a passion for women’s health, has joined the practice.

Anne Marshall and Carola Cooper started LifeThyme Wellness in 2010, offering acupuncture, massage and functional nutrition services.

“We have hired Dr Kimball, because the island needed another good acupuncturist and we felt she was a good fit for our office,” Ms Marshall said.

They also wanted to add to their staff because they run mirror practices in Bermuda and Gainesville, Florida, spending half of each year in either place.

They now also have two part-time massage therapists, Megan Faria and Claire de ste Croix, so that can continue all year around also.

Dr Kimball, arrived in Bermuda from Oregon, a month ago, and started seeing her first clients last week.

“I am very happy to be here,” she said. “I love driving to work every day and seeing the ocean.”

She said acupuncture can help with pain, anxiety, sleep and digestive issues, but also oncology support, fertility, all stages of pregnancy and post-partum depression, among other things.

“We are seeing a lot of post Covid-19 clients with issues surrounding fatigue, lack of energy and lung issues,” Ms Cooper said. “We are seeing results with acupuncture combined with herbal treatments.”

Dr Kimball did her doctorate in acupuncture and Chinese medicine at the Pacific College of Health and Science in San Diego, California, with a thesis on acupuncture and pregnancy.

“I worked with a lot of midwives and obstetricians in Oregon,” she said. “I wanted to use acupuncture to help women feel good in their pregnancy.”

She said childbirth has become increasingly medicalised in the last 50 years, and with that has come an increase in childbirth-related trauma for parents.

“People think they have to suffer throughout their pregnancies and they have to suffer with their births and afterward and they really don’t,” she said. “I can use acupuncture to help people a lot with morning sickness and pain and even at the end of the pregnancy.”

She has not yet seen any expectant mothers in Bermuda, but she dealt with many in the United States.

“Almost all of the clients I saw had natural births without caesarean sections or interventions,” she said.

She wants women to know that acupuncture can help.

“I am not a midwife and I do not do births or prenatal care,” she said. “I just want to work alongside the midwife or obstetrician and help support the women in their journey.”

After getting her doctorate, she did an internship at Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Nanjing, China.

“It was the coolest place,” Dr Kimball said. “I was really getting to see how Chinese medicine is used in primary care over there.”

She said in China, often, if you have a medical issue you see an acupuncturist first.

“They will always try to heal you with herbs and acupuncture before giving you prescriptions or surgery,” she said. “Here we have a traditional pharmacy at the hospital. In China, they would have an herbal medicine pharmacy, as well.”

And she said it is common for people in China to receive a big bag of leaves and twigs to boil down into an herbal remedy.

“That is hard for the modern person to do,” she said. “So now, all those herbal formulas are being turned into pills or tinctures.”

At LifeThyme Wellness Ms Marshall handles the herbal remedies and tinctures. She makes her own in Florida and has them shipped to the island.

www.lifethymewellness.com