Lower Back Pain After Baby

Lower Back Pain After Baby – Exercises

It happened to me during both of my pregnancies and I am sure it happened to some of you too. It is awful. I was perfectly fine for whole pregnancy, exercising, being fit and then… boom! Childbirth and for a whole one week after labour I could not stand straight. It was bad. I actually looked like 100 years old lady with hatchback walking with a stick. You got a picture.

Dear mom’s, it has absolutely nothing to do with how fit you were for the last 9 months.

During pregnancy your expanding, growing uterus stretches and weakens your abdominal muscles, affects your posture and overloads your back. The more weight you put on during pregnancy the higher is the risk that your back will be in trouble.

There are also hormones which levels change causing imbalance during pregnancy. Hormones can loosen your joints and ligaments around your spine and your pelvic bones. Now add to all of that massive effort like childbirth and your picture is complete.

Pain might occur when you walk, sit, change position, cough, sneeze, roll over bed or even lift small objects. It is not nice especially when you are desperate to get active and look after your baby.

Back pain will not go away overnight. Your muscles have to regain their strength and that takes time.

Can I do anything about it? Yes, you can. Start gentle exercises to strengthen your abdominals and stretch back muscles. You need to bring balance back to your core again.

Before you start your exercises remember to have an approval from your physician to start any of below exercises. Women after C- section should wait at least 6 weeks before starting the programme.

Your lower back exercises;

1. Walking– might seams like nothing but walking slowly and small distances is safe to do straight from day one after childbirth. Walking will help you to bring your spine into right position and set right posture pattern again. Your body will remember new set-up.

2. Walking on spot – you can do it anywhere, just walk on the spot. With days passing start gradually lifting knees higher so eventually they will go up to belly button level. By doing that you will stretch your back muscles.

3. Pelvic tilts – wait with them until pain goes away just a little bit before you will start them.

• Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat on the floor, arms alongside your body
• Gently tilt your tail-bone toward your belly button.
• Keep your hips on the floor
• While tilting tighten up your buttocks, hold up to 3-5 seconds
• Release
• Repeat maximum 8 times

4. Yoga – gentle yoga positions are more than welcome at this time.

Forward bend – in sitting. Usually we do forward band in standing but doing it in sitting position allows you for a lot of control and balance.

• Sit on the floor with your legs in front of you, bent.
• Place your hands on the top of your sheens and start sliding them down toward your feet
• At the same time really slowly bring your belly closer to your tights
• You will try to place your upper body on the top of your bend legs
• Go really slowly and only to as far as you are comfortable with
• If you will feel pain or any discomfort during this exercise, stop  – exercise only within your painless zone
• Max 3 times
• Hold end position for up to 5-10 seconds

Seated twist – this particular position is amazing because it can increase flexibility in your upper body while stretching your shoulders, hips and neck.

• sit up, legs straight out in front of you
• draw your knees closer to your chest, both feet on the floor
• drop left leg down
• lift right leg and place it over your left leg, knee toward the ceiling, right ankle by the left knee
• Draw right leg toward the body. The position must be comfortable.
• Bring left elbow to the outside of the right knee as you twist toward right- thing belly to your inner thigh
• Hold 10 seconds
• Be careful not to round your back as you twist

Wall plank –

• stand in front of a wall at arm’s length
• reach forward from your shoulders and place your palms on the wall, spread your fingers
• Gently lower your torso toward the floor only to the moment it will line up with your hands.
• Now walk with your hand on the wall until your body will go to L-shaped position
• Go only as far as you can
• Hold position for 5 seconds and go back
• Max 4 repetitions

Legs up the wall-

• lie on your back close to the wall so your buttock are facing it
• scoot your buttocks all the way to the wall and swing your legs up the wall
• hold for 30 seconds and let your spine to sink toward the floor

There are few things you can do to prevent future back pain.

6 things to prevent back pain coming back;

1. Pay attention to your posture. Stand up straight. Push your breasts forward. Be proud of them especially that they will never going to be as big as now.
2. Sit up straight. Keep straight posture while eating, feeding your baby.
3. Nurse properly – bring baby to your breast not the other way around
4. Change breastfeeding position. Try feeding while lying on your side
5. Lifting. Lift from your knees not your back. Bend knees a lot while picking something up. Do not lift heavy objects.
6. Hot shower – place water stream on the sore part of your back. It will massage it and relax your muscles.

5 things to help from day one;

1. Lift legs. use footstool to keep your feet raised of the floor while breastfeeding your bay
   2. Proper chair. feed baby in chair with armrests
   3. Use pillows to support your back while sitting
   4. Hot shower. Massage sore part of your back with hot water
   5. Hot packs. Use healing pad/hot pack around sore part of your back.

Dear mom’s lower back pain is common problem after childbirth. Your body have been trough a lot in the last 9 months and then labour. lets give it time to heal and treat it with some gentle exercises to ease of the pain.