Natural Pain Relief Tips That Can Help You While Pregnant
Carrying a child and giving birth is arguably one of the most fulfilling experience for a woman. However, along with the happiness that it brings to a couple it is not without some physical and overall health risks for the mother. There are an estimated 6.4 million women who get pregnant each year, according to MIT Pro-Choice. With this staggering number of pregnancy, you’d expect that someone should have found a way to make pregnancy less difficult in general, especially physically like the nagging back pain. While there is actually a way, most women seem to be dealing with the same struggles until now because most women dismiss their symptoms as common among pregnant women. You don’t have to do that because there are ways to relieve that pain so you can actually enjoy your pregnancy.
Light Exercise Helps
Being active has been shown to have many health benefits, both physically and mentally. This is why it’s also an effective way to combat stress! Your body’s chemistry gets balanced out when working out because it releases body chemicals called endorphins and you become less prone to depression. It improves your hormone balance by decreasing bad hormones and increasing good hormones. As a result, you are more likely to be happier since your body becomes calmer.
Pregnancy hormones tend to affect a woman’s mood. There will be days where you’ll feel up or down. It’s important to know that this is a normal part of the pregnancy, but for those who have a history of mood disorder, it would be best to consult your doctor. But with light exercises, you may be able to feel better and experience less back pain at the same time.
Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy
During the pregnancy the pelvic joints soften as a preparation for childbirth and more pressure is being put on the muscles and ligaments due to the size of the growing baby. Manual adjustments can help realign the pelvis to allow more space for the baby to grow and avoid pain in the area.
When a woman’s abdomen enlarges during pregnancy, her lower back carries more weight and stress which could cause the pelvic imbalance. When this happens, the baby may not have enough room to develop in her mother’s womb which may call for C-section during delivery. But if the mother could get her pelvic adjusted by a chiropractor, it can restore her pelvis balance.
Practice Deep Breathing
Pregnant women experience their organs get squished up from the weight and the size of the baby, resulting in diaphragms that don’t function properly. This can lead to your rib cage not moving as well as it should, which can contribute to back pain. Using proper breathing techniques can help keep your rib cage moving properly which then helps relieve back pain.
Seek Chiropractic Care
When you get pregnant expect to experience back pain due to the growing weight you have to carry in the midsection area. Even discomfort in your muscles and joints due to weight gain and the stress on shifting internal organs to accommodate the baby in your womb. Chiropractic care can provide therapeutic massages to soothe the pain.
For most women, the first 12 or so weeks of pregnancy are the most consuming because everything is all so new, so exciting, even overwhelming. However, it is also the most critical period because the most dramatic changes and development for your baby happen during this time. It is also during the first trimester that the fetus is the most prone to damage, which is why moms-to-be tend to be really cautious.
Because of this, chiropractic care is the last thing most people, especially pregnant women would consider at this point. However, what they do not realize is that chiropractic care offers a lot of health benefits for those who are pregnant. This especially true for pregnancy symptoms that most women tend to just endure during this critical period like back pain, vomiting, nausea, and more.
Work On Your Posture
Poor posture doesn’t just lead to back pain and other related injuries, but it also affects your digestive tract, confidence and stress level. The first step to correcting your posture is by paying attention to it.
Because of the protruding abdomen of pregnant women, their center of gravity shift forward, making their back compensate for it by arching their lower backs more. However, the increased curve in the back cause pain and posture issues, in which chiropractic can restore.
Indulge In A Massage Every Once In A While
Essential oils are natural aromatic compounds found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. Physiologically, they trigger the olfactory nerve, which is connected to our “emotional brain” and limbic system, and that controls heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, memory, mood, stress, hormonal balance, and more. Making it a habit to use essential oils during a massage or a bubble bath can have a powerful healing effect on us emotionally, mentally, and physically. For pregnant women, this can be soothing for your back pain because it can loosen up tightened muscles in your glutes, hamstring, and calves due to the shift in your pelvis.
Practice Mindfulness
Having a positive mindset can go a long way. Remember how your mind controls every function of your body? That can be very accurate. Like if you think you can push through your pain and workout to lose weight or get through your pregnancy symptoms you can and you will. Just by thinking you can do better helps shift your health. So when you catch yourself thinking negatively, stop yourself immediately. Think of something positive instead.
Maternity Belts Can Work Wonders
If you have pelvic girdle pain around your middle lower back and hips, a maternity belt may relieve your pain. This support garment does the work of the ligaments, muscles, and fascia of the girdle area, provided that you wear it all the time especially when doing a tiring activity like bending, lifting, walking or even standing for too long.
