Pregnancy and Pelvic Pain

A lot of changes occur to your body physiologically, psychologically and physically during pregnancy! That is to say you undergo massive changes hormonally and mentally along with huge physical changes to your body.

As your belly increases in size, your low back, hip and pelvic posture changes to create more space for the growing bub and to counterbalance the increased size and weight situated at the front of your body.

A hormone called relaxin aids in this process as it allows the ligaments which support your pelvis to loosen slightly to create more space and allow for the change in shape that facilitates the birthing process.

A consequence of this change can be a lack of stability through these joints resulting in “Pelvic Girdle Pain” or PGP. This is pain in the low back, over your pelvis, around your pubic bone and even referring into your thighs. If you start experiencing pain in these areas you should consult your Osteopath sooner rather than later as it becomes harder and harder to manage as the pregnancy progresses.

Your Osteopath can help relieve your pain with hands-on manual therapy treatment which is comfortable and completely safe for yourself and the baby. They can also provide you with postural advice and alterations to how you perform activities of daily living to offload the joints of your low back and pelvis to provide pain relief.

One of the major causative factors of PGP is a loss of stability through the pelvis which can lead to the joints becoming a bit pinched and restricted, along with a reflexive tightening of the surrounding muscles leading to stiffness and pain.

Your Osteopath can also provide you with self-management strategies that you can perform at home using massage balls and foam rollers to help decrease the tension in these muscles. Once you have the pain under control it is really important to strengthen the area around your pelvis to increase the stability to the pelvis.

Your pelvic girdle is made up of multiple bones which garner stability from 3 factors. Bony congruency - this is how well the bones fit together like puzzle pieces, ligamentous attachments - this is how the ligaments connect one bone to another and muscular activation - this is how the contractions of the muscles act to provide stability to a joint complex.

During pregnancy the ligamentous support is decreased due to the aforementioned relaxin hormone, therefore it becomes more important for the surrounding muscles to support the joints of your pelvic girdle. Your Osteopath can provide you with strengthening exercises that you can do very easily at home without any equipment.

Although PGP is not dangerous to you and the baby it can be incredibly uncomfortable and make simple daily activities such as walking up and down stairs, bending down, getting in and out of cars and rolling over in bed very difficult.

If you’re experiencing PGP we are more than happy to help!

You can book online with any of our experienced practitioners at:

www.osteopathicmovement.com

or

Call: 0402 377 209