How Osteopathy Can Help New Mums

Being a new mum is one of the most exciting times of your life. There are also a lot of new challenge’s like navigating car seats, prams and nappy bags to name a few. With so many things going on you may also forget to look after yourself.

You may find that you begin to experience upper back pain which might be something you have never felt before. It can be between the shoulder blades, around the front of the shoulders or the whole area. Generally it can be attributed to carrying the above mentioned things, however it is generally postural. Meaning you tend to mainly be leaning forward, holding, feeding and taking a baby in and out of cots or car seats.

There are lots of ways to minimize the strain placed on your body (although not always unavoidable) especially when feeding. Using pillows under the baby to bring your baby both higher and closer to you and keeping your head back rather than always looking down. These are just a few simple things that will reduce he pressure on your upper back.

As your bub gets older, and HEAVIER, you’ll probably find that you might start to get more lower back and hip complaints. It’s difficult to carry around a wriggling 10kg baby! We try and use our hips to counter the heavier weight but unfortunately our bodies can only cope with this for so long before it hurts.

Lastly, lack of sleep is another contributing factor, it just makes everything harder! Often when you are not getting enough rest and this can magnify any muscle pain you may be feeling. Fatigue has terrible effects on your posture too, when you’re tired all you just want to collapse into a heap; unfortunately this doesn’t help your body at all as it means your body is working really inefficently and often leads to discomfort.

Osteopathy can be a terrific option in helping with the aches and pains you experience early on. Osteopaths use gentle techniques such as massage, stretching and joint manipulation to address the musculoskeletal issues and postural advice to help with the new demands. We are also realistic about what you can achieve so if exercises are prescribed they’ll be simple and something that can be done at home.

Please don’t continue to put up with the pain, the early stages are tough enough without having to deal with discomfort, so why not give Osteopathy a try! We also are completely baby friendly, so feel free to bring your bub in if you need. It doesn’t bother us in the slightest!