Pregnancy. It can be a right pain in the backside, huh?! Quite literally. Or in the mid back, the lower back, or even down the legs, or your pelvis and pubic bone… Not nice at all.
Having practised as a local Pregnancy and Paediatric Chiropractor for the past 8 years, I’ve seen all of the above, far too often. I’ve also heard too many stories of pregnant women being informed by their friends, doctors, mums or aunts “oh it’s just part of being pregnant”. It makes my heart sink just writing it.
Stop and listen please ladies, (and gents, and let your partners, friends, sisters, colleagues know too), it’s not!
Yes, granted, your body goes through some huge changes during pregnancy, ones which no health professional can control. Babies grow and place a lot of new pressures on your body, but that’s not to say it has to cause pain.
Pain is your body's way of saying that something is wrong and perhaps needs to be addressed. Usually in pregnancy it’s a sign of an imbalance in the body somewhere which is getting worsened by the increasing pressures placed on you by your wonderful growing baby.
Of course, those pesky pregnancy hormones come into it too, as later on in your pregnancy a very important hormone called relaxin starts to surge through your body in order to ‘relax’ your joints and ligaments ready for the labour process. This makes things unstable for those heavier few weeks (which seems unfair really but mother nature knows what she’s doing! It’s all for good reason.) At this stage things can get somewhat more painful if there was already some underlying dysfunction.
In second , third or fourth pregnancies I often see women suffering the effects of relaxin much earlier on in their pregnancies- it’s like the body remembers what to do so starts to relax and open up much earlier than the first time! Movements such as rolling over in bed or getting out of the car seem to aggravate low back or pelvic symptoms which are characteristic of the instability that can occur.
As Chiropractors we help to create the balance that the body needs in order to cope with these new strains and daily changes. At Chiropractic By Hand we use very gentle treatment methods for pregnant women to restore balance of the spine and pelvis. We also love to help our patients help themselves so we dish out home-care advice, specific to the patient and their complaint.
Balancing of the pelvis isn’t just about relieving symptoms, but is also really important to ensure that the baby has enough room to manoeuvre itself in to the correct position for birth. If mum’s pelvis is rotated and tilted then the womb too will be under some torsion, since it attaches directly to the pelvis via some very important ligaments (the round ligament and the sacrotuberous ligament.)
So if you’re sat reading this whilst growing a new human, please do consider getting yourself checked by your local Chiropractor or Osteopath (please also check first that they specialise in pregnancy care.)
Pregnancy & Birth
Pregnancy doesn’t need to be painful!
Polly Hand is a local Pregnancy and Paediatrics Chiropractor, and founder of Chiropractic by Hand in Balham. Here Polly talks about why pregnancy doesn’t need to mean pain.
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