Manual therapy during any stage of pregnancy is an amazing self-care addition to ensuring you and your body are in the most relaxed and prepared state to welcome your new addition. Receiving any manual therapy is completely safe, as the therapist should have you positioned to what is appropriate and what you’re comfortable with while keeping your goal of the treatment in mind, so never hesitate to speak up!
Throughout your pregnancy, various body aches and pains could occur and the primary culprit to that is the hormone relaxin (kicks in at around 14 weeks). As amazing as the human body is, it can be quite dumb too! When these hormones target your ligaments to make vaginal delivery ‘easier’, they don’t just target your pelvic ligaments – they target ALL ligaments in the body. So over time during your pregnancy, as you’re gaining weight and your centre of gravity changes because of your growing belly, the pain starts and usually stays and manifests at literally any point in your body.
Closer to the end of 2nd tri and throughout the 3rd tri, you may experience pain in your pubic symphysis (pubic bone region) and this one is hard to get over from my experience with treating expecting women as massage can help temporarily, however, it won’t go away until you’ve delivered. This is the area that’s preparing to stretch quite a bit to allow the birth canal to expand at its maximum during vaginal delivery. If you’ve never felt this pain, you’re one of the lucky ones! All around hip pain can be helped by wearing a pelvic belt to ‘hold in’ your loosey goosey pelvis as well as provide support for your growing belly. You can use some belts depending on their specific function and style postpartum to help compress your sacroiliac (SI) joints while you recover. Long-term effects could occur just from your hips not going back to your ‘normal’, so try not to rush your recovery!
Increasing breast size also has a significant impact on your neck and mid-back and the weight of them pull those vertebrae forward with ease (thanks relaxin!). This area can be of concern long-term as well, because once your upper body has adapted to your changing posture, you risk making it worse postpartum when holding your baby for any reason, and during breastfeeding (should you go that route). If breastfeeding for let’s say, 2 years tops, that’s quite a long time of naturally assuming the position of rounding your shoulders inwards and flexing your head forward during the entire latching and feeding process. Sure, the older your child becomes the feedings are less often and shorter, but most mothers still haven’t thought about strengthening their backs during all of this because hello, motherhood! Once you go back to work at your office job for example, your posture stays the same so this can be a persistent issue. Wearing a very supportive nursing bra even during pregnancy can really help, just make sure you tighten the straps every so often in case they loosen up with frequent wear.
Sciatica is a very common complaint as there can either be a disk issue due to the hyperextension of the lumbar vertebrae or during the 3rd tri the baby can quite literally rest their head on the sciatic nerve. Although some therapy can help, sometimes it just won’t go away until after delivery, so make sure you do your exercises that your therapist has given you!
Sleeping or napping can be a pain, but only when you’re not positioned properly. Pillowing your body in the ideal position doesn’t mean you have to spend $150 on a body pillow. A ‘C’ or ‘J’-shaped body pillow can be useful to an extent. Sure you have some neck support and some cushion between your knees, but your top full leg all the way down to your feet needs to be supported to make sure you’re not stretching the ligaments at your SI joints. Using 2 separate pillows for your head and to hold onto is perfectly fine, but I’d highly recommend a bolster for between your legs from IKEA (check the source below). This bolster can be used for a variety of positions in bed or on the couch or even the floor, and it’s super affordable (I have 2 of them). Check out my newest post on Facebook and Instagram for reference on positioning.
General complaints of headaches, constipation and swollen hands & feet are also nuisances that can be helped during a massage, so if you’re not feeling your best reach out to me to book an appointment!
Moms are tough, and we all owe it to them. After all, they made us from scratch.
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