You might not realize that pregnancy is often the ideal time for women to see a physical therapist. During pregnancy, our bodies are changing and weight is shifting around. There are different forces acting on the body–that’s why it’s important to have a physical therapist analyze what’s going on with your body during pregnancy.
Working with pregnant patients, we have a chance to reduce pain or help improve strength so that you’re able to stay active and healthy throughout your pregnancy.
Common Complaints During Pregnancy
Some of the most common complaints I hear are:
- Low back pain
- Pain around the pelvis like the pubic symphysis, the joint in the front where the pubic bones meet together
- Sciatic pain that goes down the legs
- Headaches
You could take medication to help with pain or headaches before you became pregnant, but during pregnancy, you’re not really able to take those medications.
Physical therapy can really help to address those issues and get to the root of the problem so that you’re able to feel good and continue to be active throughout your pregnancy.
How Physical Therapy Helps Pregnant Women
Let’s look at what physical therapy during pregnancy entails and what we would address during physical therapy visits. First, we’re going to analyze each person so we can see what specific things are happening in each case that are affecting that person’s pain.
While we’re pregnant, our bodies are preparing for the birth of the baby. Our ligaments are starting to loosen up. Everything’s getting a little bit more lax. As physical therapists, we want to ensure that the muscles are able to help stabilize and support those joints that the ligaments aren’t supporting as well as they used to.
For example, some muscles may be too tight, some muscles may be too loose or maybe aren’t strong enough. We can work to balance those things out. We can also look at how you’re moving, look at your body mechanics and work out how to help you move in a better pattern.
When Should Pregnant Women See a Physical Therapist?
You could experience symptoms at any point in your pregnancy, so it’s never too soon or never too late to reach out and ask for some help from a physical therapist.
Early in your pregnancy, you may experience symptoms even though you don’t really feel many changes in your body yet. Sometimes just the hormones in early pregnancy make your nerves more sensitive. That change may be irritating and causing some pain, so it’s a good time to address those things early.
Perhaps this isn’t your first pregnancy. Maybe you’ve had a previous pregnancy or multiple pregnancies and your body really didn’t recover from those earlier pregnancies. Now you’re going into this one with things not as strong as they should be because there are underlying issues from earlier pregnancies. The earlier you get on top of this situation, the better.
We can address these issues so that you can feel good and stay active throughout your pregnancy.
Benefits of Physical Therapy Later in Pregnancy
Later on in a pregnancy, one of the things that we can help with is to fit you for an appropriate maternity belt. When you come in, we can talk about what symptoms you’re having. We can try some different options and find one that works well for you while giving you extra support. That can be really helpful as well.
It’s also good to think about post-pregnancy. After the baby’s born, our bodies don’t just snap back to “everything’s great.” That’s another appropriate time to reach out to a physical therapist so we can help you through that recovery stage to get you back to a healthy lifestyle.
If you are pregnant or know someone who’s pregnant who would benefit from some help, please let us know. We can just sit down and talk a little bit about what’s going on and help devise a plan to help you or a friend stay active throughout the pregnancy. To schedule a physical therapy evaluation, give us a call at 785-271-5533.
