How Pregnancy Affects Your Body (and How PT Can Help)
Pregnancy is an exciting journey, but it can lead to a ton of uncomfortable changes in your body. And most people don’t realize that physical therapy can help you navigate those changes more easily! I’m Lauren Masi, Doctor of Physical Therapy and board-certified Orthopedic Clinical Specialist. I’m also the owner and Clinical Services Director of Bay Area Physical Therapy and Lafayette Physical Therapy. Today we’re going to talk about how pregnancy affects your body and how physical therapy can help.
Common Body Changes During and After Pregnancy
For those of you who have been pregnant or are currently pregnant, you know that your body changes in many ways, both during pregnancy and after. Here are some of the most common ways this happens:
Hormone Changes
First and foremost is that we know our hormones are changing, which results in ligament laxity (or loose ligaments) in preparation for delivery. This allows our pelvis to have significant mobility to be able to open and deliver the child.
Weight Gain
During pregnancy, as you are getting bigger, you are gaining weight, you are gaining distance in your belly. It can cause you to move and walk differently. You might not be able to squat and bend over to pick things up quite the same way, and some women even acquire that pregnancy waddle.
Sciatic Nerve Pain
Some women also report developing sciatica or pain that goes down the back of your leg, and that can be due to tight muscles that work on holding up that increased weight. And it could sometimes even be that the baby is pushing directly on some of those nerves that come out of your lower back and extend down the leg into your sciatic nerve.
Increased Blood Volume
Another change that can happen is an increase in blood volume, and with that increase in blood volume, some women can even report carpal tunnel symptoms, where they get numbness and tingling or even burning pain into the hands because now it’s not just your blood volume, but it’s the blood that is going into the baby as well.
Stress on Pelvic Floor Muscles
The most obvious of all of these changes is the stress that this puts on your pelvic floor. This begins during pregnancy, so delivery can be sometimes a traumatic event because it requires all that stretching of the pelvis. This stretches those muscles that sit in that bowl of your pelvis.
Incontinence
Some women, but not all, will experience leaking and incontinence during pregnancy, sometimes very early. Sometimes you might think it shouldn’t happen until your third trimester, but it can occur earlier, and you can have some leaking or incontinence postpartum. I want to point out that incontinence may be common, but it is not a normal symptom just because you’ve had a baby. I know I hear a lot of times moms get together and they’re all talking about how, oh, I leak and that’s just fine, that’s how it’s supposed to be. But I’m here to tell you it’s not, and physical therapy can help you with that.
How Physical Therapy Can Address Body Changes During and After Pregnancy
Physical therapy during and after pregnancy can help you by improving your movement patterns and strategies, as your body is changing. We can also help you address postural changes. You might not notice that the baby is pulling you into a very arched, swaybacked position—but we can see it and help you address it. We also want to make sure that we keep you strong, but don’t push you too hard and outside of what is safe for a pregnant woman.
Another thing that physical therapy can help with is reducing pain from that muscle tightness that you might get in your lower back, for example. And again, whether we are doing that in physical therapy with some of our manual techniques or referring you to one of our therapeutic massage therapists who can do pre- or postnatal massage, we want you to be comfortable.
Another thing that we will begin doing during pregnancy, if the symptoms arise, is strengthening that pelvic floor, teaching you strategies that can help you during delivery, but also letting you know that we want you to stay strong in that area, so that hopefully your postpartum experience is that much better.
Is Physical Activity During Pregnancy Good or Bad?
The rule of thumb for that is, during your pregnancy, you are totally allowed to continue doing any of your strengthening and activity levels that you were doing before you became pregnant—unless you feel uncomfortable for any reason. Listen to your body. If your body is telling you to stop running, stop running. But if you were a marathon runner before and you want to run a bit into your pregnancy, go for it. That is not contraindicated just because you’re pregnant. If you have not done those activities before, we do not encourage you to start new things while you’re pregnant.
Postpartum Physical Therapy Can Help You Recover Faster
Once you are cleared postpartum, we do encourage you to return to physical therapy so that we can assess for things like a diastasis recti, which is the splitting of the muscles that can happen right down the front of your belly, where that six-pack is.
You might also experience some pelvic instability, where your pelvis might rotate or feel a little stretched out after delivery due to that ligament laxity. And we can help you address pelvic floor weakness and injury.
It’s important to realize that the postpartum period, or the fourth trimester period, requires just as much attention as when you are pregnant. And if you are choosing to breastfeed, your hormones are continuing to be produced, which can actually continue that ligament laxity well after the baby is born.
So if you feel like you need any help in assessing how physical therapy can help you during or after pregnancy, please call our front desk at (925) 284-3840 today for a complimentary consultation.