unlock the benefits of prenatal physical therapy: a guide to a healthier pregnancy
Common Prenatal Conditions and How Prenatal Physical Therapy Can Help
What To Expect During a Prenatal Physical Therapy Evaluation
Incorporating Prenatal Physical Therapy Into Your Routine or Birth Plan
Real-Life Success Stories of Women Who Have Benefited From Prenatal Physical Therapy
Pregnancy is an amazing time in a woman's life, but it can also come with aches, pains, and discomfort. That's where prenatal physical therapy comes in. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the benefits of prenatal physical therapy and how it can contribute to a healthier, more comfortable pregnancy.
During pregnancy, our body goes through numerous physical changes which can contribute to various discomforts and challenges such as back pain, pelvic floor issues, and muscle imbalances. Pregnancy physical therapy focuses on addressing common patterns we see during pregnancy and addresses your specific concerns to decrease your symptoms and get ahead of others that may occur. Besides just improving common pregnancy complaints prenatal physical therapy can also help prepare your body for labor and delivery. By improving pelvic floor length and coordination as well as overall mobility and muscle strength; postpartum physical therapy can help make labor and delivery and your postpartum recovery easier.
Whether you are experiencing specific complaints of just want to optimize your pregnancy and birth experience, prenatal physical therapy can be a game changer. In this guide, we will explore all aspects of prenatal physical therapy, from what to expect during a session to common discomforts during pregnancy and how pregnancy physical therapy can help.
Understanding The Benefits of Prenatal Physical Therapy
Prenatal physical therapy offers a wide array of benefits for soon-to-be mamas. One of the best benefits is getting rid of those common frustrating pregnancy-related issues such as back pain, pelvis pain, and pelvic floor issues or even possibly getting ahead of them so you do not need to experience them at all. Through targeted exercises and manual techniques, pregnancy physical therapy can help improve posture, strengthen muscles, improve mobility, and reduce pain, enhancing overall comfort during pregnancy.
Besides just focusing on pain and dysfunction, prenatal physical therapy also focuses on preparing the body for the physical demands of labor and delivery. By enhancing pelvic floor function, promoting flexibility, and building strength in key muscle groups, mamas can improve their endurance and potentially reduce the likelihood of complications during childbirth. This proactive approach can contribute to a smoother and more successful birthing experience.
Being active during pregnancy makes the pregnancy easier on your body. It can be frustrating when trying to exercise when different pains and dysfunctions pop up or your belly is just getting in the way. Pregnancy physical therapy will help maintain your activity levels without dysfunction which will also help your mental health allowing for a smoother pregnancy journey. Being able to participate in exercise during pregnancy can help reduce stress and help you feel more in control of the physical changes that are occurring. This holistic approach to pregnancy can help mamas navigate pregnancy feeling empowered!
Common Pregnancy-Related Issues and How Prenatal Physical Therapy Can Help
Our bodies are going through so many physical changes that can lead to different pains and dysfunctions which a lot of mamas just suffer through but prenatal physical therapy can help make your pregnancy experience more enjoyable. Some of the common reasons mamas are seen in pregnancy physical therapy are:
Low Back Pain: our center of gravity is changing and our abs are getting more stretched which can put more demand on our low backs. Prenatal physical therapy can help you maintain a more neutral posture by improving deep core strength (yes you can still build strength during pregnancy) and educate you on correct form during movements or exercises to decrease overuse of your lower back. Manual techniques are also used to help alleviate pain.
Pubic Symphysis Pain: Pubic Symphysis pain or Symphysis Pubic pain, is pain that is present in the front of the pelvis and very common during pregnancy. Typically pain is felt with stairs, walking, and turning in bed. Pregnancy physical therapy can help educate you on how to move without causing more stress to the pubic symphysis thereby decreasing pain and improving muscle imbalances in the pelvis to dissipate forces more evenly. Dry needling is another technique we often utilize to help give mamas immediate relief.
Urinary Incontinence or Leaking: this is the uncontrollable loss of urine. It can happen with any activity but is commonly felt with coughing, sneezing, vomiting, and jumping. Many women think this is something you'll just have to suffer with forever but the good news is you don’t. Let’s start to get a handle on why it is occurring now to help make pregnancy easier and your postpartum recovery. Pregnancy physical therapy will help improve the coordination and strength of your pelvic floor as well as your ability to decrease putting more pressure and stress to your pelvic floor (fun fact: often leaking happens because we ask our pelvic floor to do more work versus it just being weak and that source is coming from outside the pelvis!)
Mid Back Pain: changes in our posture due to growing baby and our boobs just keep getting bigger can contribute to our upper body getting pulled downward putting more stress on our mid-back. Pregnancy physical therapy can help alleviate pain with manual techniques, specific mobility and strengthening exercises can help balance out the pulls on our spine and breath work to help make changes from the inside.
There are many other conditions prenatal physical therapy can help.
When To Start Prenatal Physical Therapy
This is person-specific, however there are times we recommend. If you have pain, leaking, or pressure at any point, you should begin pregnancy physical therapy shortly . It is not just going to get better on its own and improvements can occur faster if you address the issues sooner versus later.
If you do not have any issues but are looking to make your pregnancy easier and optimal then we still recommend coming in sooner rather than later. There are certain muscle imbalance patterns we typically see. It is much easier to get the right things firing and moving earlier on versus later. This way you can adapt these patterns into your normal routine.
If you are not looking to optimize your pregnancy but just want to focus on birth prep then coming in the third trimester is ideal.
Finding a Prenatal Physical Therapist
Finding a pregnancy physical therapist can be challenging because not everyone is specialized in treating pregnant mamas. We highly recommend finding someone who treats pregnant moms often. Usually, the therapist will be a pelvic floor physical therapist. They tend to have more training in conditions related to the pelvic floor and pregnancy tends to be high on that list. Check out this blog on how to find a pelvic floor physical therapist near you to find someone in your area, as well as more about what to look for in your PT.
Finding someone who will be able to keep you exercising at a challenging level and staying active is really important, and not all PTs are skilled in this area. Therefore you can also look at finding someone who is a pregnancy and postpartum exercise specialist.
What To Expect During A Prenatal Physical Therapy Evaluation
At the start of prenatal physical therapy, we begin with a detailed evaluation. We start with in-depth subjective history to learn about your symptoms and your past medical history as well as talking about what you want to get out of pregnancy physical therapy.
We then go into our objective evaluation where we will look at mobility, strength, tenderness, alignment, posture, breathing, and form, or how you move with specific movements. This is where we learn everything about how your body is functioning. if you have specific complaints we will talk about what we found and how that relates to your symptoms as well as how we will address them. If you do not have any complaints we will still talk about certain things we believe you can work on to make sure symptoms do not begin.
Do I Need An Internal Assessment
An internal assessment of your pelvic floor can be an important tool to have to decrease symptoms however it is just one of our tools and not something you have to have done. We also do not do internal work in the first trimester.
What Types of Treatments Are Performed
In pregnancy physical therapy, we use a variety of different techniques to give our patients the most well-rounded treatment
Manual therapy: we use soft tissue mobilizations (which can include internal pelvic floor releases), visceral or organ mobilizations, joint mobilizations, as well as techniques to decrease round ligament and broad ligament pain
Mobility exercises: making sure joints and muscles can move and can get into proper alignment is important during pregnancy to help maintain balance in your system and decrease extra stress in one area. It is also really important during delivery. If parts of your pelvis do not open, it makes it harder for the baby to descend and exit out
Strengthening exercises: your body has to work harder during pregnancy. It is important to strengthen to keep up with the changing demand. As our bodies are changing the most optimal muscles for helping us move, sometimes do not end up showing up to help, resulting in imbalance and dysfunction. Prenatal physical therapy will help target the specific strengthening exercises you need to keep you balanced
Breathwork: Specific breathing exercises can be amazing to help improve mobility and decrease tightness as well as get us reconnected to muscles that are not working as well as we would like. Our breathing is directly linked to our pelvic floor, which is the other reason breathwork is so important during pregnancy.
Dry needling: This is a specific technique that uses dry (or non-medicated) acupuncture-sized needles to help decrease pain and decrease tightness. It often gives immediate results in symptoms which is amazing! Dry needling is safe during pregnancy outside of the first trimester.
Key Areas of Focus For Pregnant Mamas
In prenatal physical therapy, we tend to see patterns of things that are generally weak, get overworked, or lose mobility. To get ahead of dysfunction, we like to make sure specific muscles or movements get incorporated into your routine. The way that we target specific muscles is dependent on the person because everyone is different!
Deep Core: Your transverse abdominus is your deepest core muscle. Its primary job is to give you stability to your pelvis and spine. When it is strong it will help support the baby decreasing increased stress on your pelvis, pelvic floor, and lower back.
Pelvic Floor: but this is not what you think, don’t go and do all the kegels. Focusing more on being able to control the length of your pelvic floor is important especially during delivery since it needs to stretch for the baby to exit
Glutes: because of postural changes the back muscles take over to do all the work to keep us upright contributing to low back pain. Working them, especially in a lengthening fashion (or eccentrically) helps with posture but also promotes good pelvic mobility to help with birth
Diaphragm: this is a muscle? And you do things to strengthen it? Your diaphragm is important in posture and trunk stability and works as part of a system with your pelvic floor. Due to the growing baby, it can often get stuck in a flattened position decreasing its ability to help with posture and to be able to move air making it harder to breathe.
Incorporating Prenatal Physical Therapy Into Your Pregnancy Routine or Birth Plan
We want to make it as easy as possible for you to add things into your routine and a lot of times, we are just adjusting how you are doing things to have you perform them more optimally! When exercises are added to your routine we will discuss ways to make it the easiest way possible.
Prenatal physical therapy is an amazing adjunct to your birth plan. We help find out ways to make your birth plan successful. If you want a natural birth; finding positions in which you can feel your pelvis and pelvic floor move easiest can be helpful to deliver to choose as a preference for pushing since you can feel what is happening. For example: If you can feel your pelvic floor lengthen in a side-lying position but can not feel anything on your back, pushing in a side-lying position may be a better option for you.
Pregnancy physical therapy will also go over ways to help move through the stages of labor to help promote progress. Different parts of your pelvis need to open at specific times to let labor progress and knowing what to do when can help. Check out this blog on exercises for labor progression.
Complimentary Therapies For a Healthier Pregnancy
Prenatal physical therapy is not the only thing that will help make your pregnancy easier we believe in multiple disciplines working together, giving our patients the best outcomes. Some people we typically work with are outside of your OB or midwife:
Chiropractor
Dieticians
Personal trainers
Acupuncturist
Doula
Massage Therapist
Mental health therapist
Lactation consultant
Real-Life Success Stories of Women Who Have Had Success From Prenatal Physical Therapy
“Had the best experience working with Lauren! I worked with her for the last 2 months of my pregnancy after I started struggling with terrible sciatic nerve pain due to some weakness in my core/pelvic floor. Lauren gave me the tools I needed to strengthen my core and pelvic floor to keep me running (literally) through 37 weeks and have a completely unmedicated birth at 39 weeks to a healthy 8lb 13oz baby girl! I had zero tearing and felt so strong! I could not recommend working with Lauren enough! ”
“Calling all mama’s who struggled with back pain even before pregnancy- Empower PT and Wellness is for you! Before pregnancy I often struggled with lower back pain and sciatica, and then once I became pregnant my discomfort only intensified. I started working with Aimee at around 20 weeks, and she tailored a program for me that helped alleviate my back pain within a matter of weeks! I continued to work with Aimee throughout my pregnancy which helped me remain comfortable and active during pregnancy, and allowed for a relatively quick recovery postpartum with no major pelvic floor issues. In fact, I’m thrilled to report my back actually feels better AFTER pregnancy than it did before thanks to the strength and stability Aimee helped me build during my pregnancy!”
“I was induced at 38 weeks due to extra fluid. When I arrived my midwife was unsure if baby’s head would engage because the extra fluid was keeping her head floating. She said if the baby’s head did not engage more in an hour she was going to have the OB break my water instead of her due to cord prolapse. During that hour, I used the movements you taught me to help baby’s head engaged. After an hour my midwife was surprised that baby’s head actually did engage more and she was able to successfully break my water without cord prolapse. After that, I did the movements you taught me for laboring through 1-6 cm. I was able to move and breathe through the pain and each contraction and I didn’t need an epidural because of what you taught me! Things progressed quickly and I went from 6-10 cm in 25 minutes. I remember you mentioned pushing on my side being an option and I remembered you showing me how to position my knees. I did both and had her a few minutes later! I truly can not thank you enough for all that you taught me. Every woman preparing to have a baby should have the privilege of working with you.”
Prenatal physical therapy has many different benefits from educating mamas of important focuses during their exercise/movement to decreasing any symptoms to improving birth experiences. It is something all women should should prioritize in their pregnancy journey to make their pregnancy easier and healthier.
Dig Deeper: Uncover More Secrets to Pelvic Floor Health
Hi! We are Dr.Aimee and Dr. Lauren
We are the owners of Empower Physical Therapy and Wellness. We are pelvic floor physical therapists who specialize in helping women from pregnancy, into postpartum and through perimenopause, menopause and then beyond! We believe all women deserve to do all of the things they love without symptoms!
You can contact us via our website, email at hello@weempowerpt.com or social media!
The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or symptoms. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this blog.
If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor, go to the emergency department, or call 911 immediately. The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any medical or healthcare institutions.
