Back pain and pregnancy, tips on what you can do to make your pregnancy and lower back pain a little easier to deal with.
Normal weight gain in pregnancy is about 35 pounds, but lots of women I have met over my twenty-year midwifery career gained 35 pounds to 70 pounds during pregnancy. The stress of sudden weight gain during the short cycle of pregnancy can cause back pain and pregnancy misery.
Pregnancy posture change:
Pregnancy and lower back pain happens because of pregnancy weight gain and the automatic adjustments your body makes in posture to accommodate the growing womb. This change in posture is called pregnancy lordosis. Upper and lower back pain and pregnancy lordosis go hand in hand because your spine becomes super curved, elongated, and your breast and buttocks stick out pulling and stretching your back muscles.
Pregnancy hormones:
On top of this, back pain and pregnancy go hand in hand because of the higher levels of pregnancy hormones you produce. Pregnancy hormones have a relaxing effect on many of the muscles in your body to accommodate the muscle stretching that is required during pregnancy. Relaxed muscles are not as supportive to the spine and abdominal muscles, therefore many women complain of back pain and pregnancy shoulder stress.
Pregnancy pelvic changes:
The female pelvis is made up of many different bones. When you get towards the end of your pregnancy, a baby cannot fit to a normal-sized woman’s pelvis without the pelvis opening and expanding. The pelvis has two major joints; one towards the right and one towards the left of your lower back along with a hinge joint at the very tail end of your spine.
Back pain and pregnancy ligament pulling and stretching is a direct result of your pelvis opening, which will allow your baby’s head to engage or enter into the cavity of your pelvis. Pregnancy and lower back pain is also caused by the excess pressure felt deep within your pelvis as your baby sits and waits for labor to commence.
All of these factors taken together, it is not unusual for pregnant women to get backache. So if you get a backache straight away start doing things to prevent your backache from getting worse or getting out of control.
How to help minimize symptoms associated with pregnancy and lower back pain:
I definitely recommend having nice warm bath soaks, putting nice warm compresses on your back, or even better still having back massages to help with your pregnancy and lower back pain.
I would absolutely recommend that every pregnant woman go to see a chiropractor during pregnancy. A lot of traditional obstetrician, gynecologist and midwives are a little afraid of sending the women to a chiropractor because they are just not informed as to what chiropractors actually do. A chiropractor can help your spine accommodate easier to all the posture changes that happens during your pregnancy and relieve pain associated to pulled and stressed muscles associated to pregnancy and lower back pain
Apart from that, let us look at what things can you do to your own body to help minimize back pain and pregnancy. Wearing a good supporting bra during your pregnancy will support the increased breast weight and uplift your breasts so they do not feel so heavy. This will alleviate a lot of the upper back stress associated with pregnancy and lower back pain.
There are also a lot of pregnancy stomach binders that have been created to help support the weight of your growing womb which can help relieve back pain and pregnancy ligament discomfort.
Many women are focused on fashionable shoes and wear ridiculous footwear during pregnancies that do not support their posture and feet. I cannot believe how many pregnant women out there are wearing ridiculously high shoes or low shoes. Remember, as you become more and more pregnant all the bones and muscles within your feet are stressed.
Take a good look at the shoes you are wearing during your pregnancy and ask yourself these questions to evaluate the importance of your feet:
Do your shoes have a good supportive arch in them?
Are your shoes nice and wide to accommodate the increasing growth and widening of my foot associated to extra blood volume and swelling that occurs during pregnancy?
Can your foot easily slip out of your shoe? If so you could trip and fall and injure yourself or your baby.
The more informed you are about pregnancy the better choices you will make. Better choices mean a happier healthier mom and baby. Pregnancy can be an extraordinary experience for a woman. It is far more than growing a baby and understanding pregnancy and lower back pain.
Pregnancy has a huge emotional, mental, spiritual, and energetic side to it. The more you understand these aspects, the easier and less symptomatic your pregnancy will be. Learning how to connect with the emotions of your unborn child will allow you to enhance your pregnancy experience and surrender to its normal physiological process of pregnancy and lower back pain.
Midwife Hannah Bajor C.N.M., M.S.N. is founder, CEO and Visionary behind the Lumalove® brand of getting pregnant, pregnancy, infertility and miscarriage educational support products and services.
Hannah says “knowing my life’s purpose gives one a hug advantage”. Her 30 years midwifery experience along with her personal journey through ten years of infertility, having personally experienced a 16 week miscarriage and a near death experience delivering her second child has lit a fire in her soul that NO ONE can put out and that is to “change childbirth education as we know it”.
Lumalove LLC helps couples globally access new and dynamic prenatal education and in doing so lays the foundational blueprints for a happier, healthier pregnancy outcome and gives their unborn child the opportunity of unlimited potential.
