How To Reduce Lower Back Pain During Pregnancy

How To Reduce Lower Back Pain During Pregnancy

Thank you for tuning in to our live video today! We ran a poll on Instagram to see if you wanted to hear about any pregnancy tips and it seemed unanimously that it would be helpful! Before we start, we see patients with spinal problems primarily, so we’re going to be talking about the strain that pregnancy places on the spine. Do let us know if you’d like to see a full unit on the strain pregnancy places on the spine and how to prepare for this change - this would be on the premium section of our membership area!

Before we get into it don't forget you can:

🔍 Join Our FREE Membership Area Today - Fix your back from home: a Video call consultation from anywhere in the world with our consultants: are a great number of chemical and physical challenges that occur during pregnancy. When it comes to preventing back pain with pregnancy, there are a few exercises you can do that will stop these problems from occurring - or prevent them for as long as possible. We’ll also briefly cover crisis management - so if you’re in a lot of pain what you can do.

There are 3 areas of vulnerability that occur with pregnancy:

Increased load on the front causes sway back posture that immediately places pressure on the lower back

Sway back posture also places pressure on the thoracic spine by pushing it back

As the thoracic spine then goes back, the head comes forward causing neck issues through forward head posture.

The L5-S1 at the bottom of the lower back will bear the brunt of posture problems due to the extra weight of the baby on your front, but there are changes you can make that can help you to prepare for that extra weight to support your thoracic spine and neck. All these changes take place very quickly, so it’s important to be proactive in tackling the problem - expect it’s going to happen so you can take action!

Building the postural muscles and posterior chain so you can more effortlessly deal with the load is going to help you out significantly. Strengthening your postural muscles in the mid-back will be a focus, as well as strengthening the lower body, provides a more adaptive support mechanism. You’re going to be putting on weight in a short space of time so using these exercises will ensure your body is more primed to adapt to this.

The exercises you can do are:

Mid-back engagement - if you’ve seen any of our other live videos, we’ve spoken about this one recently. This involves an exercise band anchored into a door as we show. Hold each side of the band in each hand, elbows down and forearms up, then pop the chest out at the end of the movement.

Rows - again these just help with strengthening your postural muscles. You’ll hold each side of the band in each hand and pull the weight to your side as shown. Pop the chest at the end of the range.

Squats - these will help with strengthening your posterior chain, as well as challenging the core. Don’t force the depth on these though, just go as low as you can comfortably.

Perform 15 reps of each exercise then back to the start for 3-5 steps. You’ll get a bit more strength to resist these changes, the pelvis will twist at some point but you can prevent it happening too early that will cause you discomfort.

Posture changes can stay after pregnancy unless you take the steps to correct it. You’ll be more biomechanically stable and you’ll be stronger for it if you do incorporate these, and you’ll have a better post-pregnancy experience as well.

If you can fix the mid back, the neck doesn’t need to come forwards, so that addresses this area as well. If you are in a lot of pain, ice on the lower back to reduce inflammation - 2-3 times during the day and avoid any exercises involving chin to chest movements.

If you’ve got bands at home, you can do neck extensions to help if you are getting a bit of neck pain. This helps to open out the discs at the back of the neck. We show you in the video how to perform these.

The questions we answered today were:

Can I do the routine after pregnancy as well?

The stresses don’t stop after pregnancy, now you have a child that’s growing and wriggling! Definitely continue these if not more so, husbands or other halves get involved as well to ensure their back doesn’t go either.

Is there a point in pregnancy where these exercises are not appropriate?

No, mainly because these involve movements that are easy to do throughout pregnancy. If you can’t do them physically in the later stages of pregnancy that’s fair enough. There are some exercises like the lumbar towel one that we often recommend that might be very difficult for you to do when you’re heavily pregnant, so we definitely wouldn’t recommend that one. The ones we’ve recommended today can be done throughout all stages of pregnancy.

#backinshape #pregnancy #backpain

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