Chiropractic Care During Pregnancy In Jacksonville, FL

Pregnancy is one of the most important and exciting things that can take place in a woman’s life. The way she grows and supports a human life inside her body is a miracle, there’s really no other way to put it. What happens inside her body during that miraculous process is very complicated. It’s worth our respect and comes with a few well-documented challenges.

There’s plenty that an expecting mother can do to minimize the risk of those challenges becoming serious and increase the chances of having a smooth, healthy pregnancy, delivery, and recovery.

Many natural physical and hormonal changes during pregnancy can contribute to low back and pelvic pain. Those symptoms usually start between the fifth and seventh month, although a small percentage of women experience them as early as month one. As your developing baby grows, its increasing weight and size can cause changes to your posture and spine. While this is normal and natural, these changes can lead to subluxation – pressure on the nerves causing aches and pains. The big, strong psoas muscle can shorten during pregnancy, worsening the discomfort.

Instability may also become a problem. One way this occurs is due to the increase in the curvature of the low back as the weight of the baby starts to cause the mother’s posture to change. Closer to the due date, a hormone called relaxin is released to relax the pelvis to accommodate the birth process more easily. While this provides easier delivery, it can cause instability and pain in the pelvis, particularly the sacroiliac joints.

Fortunately, chiropractic care is a natural, drug-free, empowering way of handling the instability and pain that may otherwise come along during pregnancy. This is especially important because it can allow you to avoid taking medications likely to negatively impact your baby and complicate your pregnancy and birth.

It’s important to understand that giving birth is a natural process. It’s something that a woman’s body prepares to handle on its own without the help of drugs or surgery. Your delivery can go just the way you’d want it to go, you’ll just need to plan it out and follow the plan.

We make a few essential accommodations for pregnant moms in the office to keep everything as comfortable as possible. Among those are pregnancy cushions or pillows and specialized techniques for relaxing and releasing the pelvis. The whole point is to allow the mother to stay as comfortable as possible and for the smoothest, most natural birth experience possible.

Millions of families have discovered that chiropractic is something of a secret weapon when it comes to creating the birth experience they want. Seeing a chiropractor early in pregnancy allows you to quickly catch small problems, minimizing the natural discomfort of preparing your body for birth.

Chiropractic is here to help! At Beyond Bones, we’re honored to be a small part of your experience.

How We Take Care of Pregnant Moms in Jacksonville, FL

Comprehensive Consultation and Exam

We must get to know you to determine how or if we can help. That happens during a thorough conversation with your chiropractor. During the history and consultation, we’ll discuss your health history and what’s bothering you currently, if anything. We’ll also discuss how your pregnancy is going and your plan for the upcoming birth.

During your first visit examination, we pay close attention to your pelvis and low back. Because of the significant physical and hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy, the lower back absorbs a lot of stress. Pressure can be put on the nerves in that area, which can lead to low back pain, symptoms down the legs, and difficulties during the birth process. So, it’s imperative we ensure that your lower back and pelvis are free from subluxation.

Pregnancy can be relatively comfortable, and the birth process itself can be smooth, so much of it depends on the health of your spine. Our main goals during the evaluation are to investigate your spinal health as thoroughly as possible and determine how we can help your pregnancy, delivery, and recovery be as smooth as possible.

Why Pregnant Moms Should See a Chiropractor Throughout Their Pregnancy

Pregnancy is one of the most profound and natural experiences a woman can have. Bringing a new human into the world is a beautiful thing, but it comes with some challenges. Expectant mothers’ bodies undergo significant changes throughout pregnancy: physically and chemically. Those changes are normal, natural, and beneficial, but it creates a complicated situation for the new mother in several ways.

As her belly grows to accommodate the growing baby, and her center of gravity moves forward over her legs, increasing stress accumulates in the joints of her spine and pelvis. Releasing that stress by removing the subluxation removes nerve pressure and the aches and pains that come with it.

A pregnant mom can have almost any kind of birth experience she’d like to have. Chiropractic is beneficial throughout pregnancy for helping manage minor problems and irritations that can become much bigger ones if ignored. It’s an excellent way to ensure that the pregnancy, delivery, and recovery are just as smooth and comfortable as possible, exactly as planned.

Soft Tissue Work and Stretching

Hormonal and physical changes can present various challenges to a pregnant woman. At times during the pregnancy, a great, simple massage may provide all the relief and relaxation you need to get through the next week of growth and change. That massage may allow for even deeper healing results from your chiropractic adjustments. Massage can also help you get deeper sleep and relieve anxiety. More sleep and less anxiety alone can change the entire pregnancy experience.

Some muscles may require special attention. In particular, the psoas muscles might need to be released more directly. Those muscles run deep inside the pregnant woman’s body, and can tighten up during pregnancy leading to discomfort in the mid back.

Making sure the new mother feels loose and relaxed throughout her pregnancy can pay off in a big way. It can be the difference between having the birth she dreams of and the decision being taken out of her hands.

Changes to the In-Office Experience for the Pregnant Patient

Generally, the experience in one of our Beyond Bones practices will be similar, regardless of the patient. That’s not an accident. Our speciality is the chiropractic adjustment, and we prioritize doing it very well. Pregnant women are one group whose visits will be slightly different in some important ways, although the main foundation of their visits will remain unchanged.

One of the main frustrations for many pregnant women is that they can’t lie face down during much of their pregnancy. That’s why it’s such a relief to be able to lie face down in the practice for their adjustments, using specialized pillows. We also slightly modify our adjustments to consider some of the changes occurring in the woman’s body.

Chiropractic is still chiropractic, and the results will be the same: a healthier, more flexible mother and baby ready for the best possible birth process!

Common Causes of Pregnancy Pain

Low Back Pain

Low back pain is one of the most common symptoms during pregnancy. In many cases, the woman will develop low back pain at around five to seven months into the pregnancy. Sometimes it starts later, sometimes much earlier. Much of this is due to how your body grows and changes shape to accommodate the growing baby. We usually see your low back arch forward, out of alignment. The resulting pressure on the nerves causes pain in the low back. Hormonal changes can complicate the weight gain further, leading to more discomfort.

Fortunately, there are some simple and very helpful solutions. Regular exercise can help a great deal. So can stretching and acupuncture. Alternating the application of heat and cold may also bring some relief to the pain. Many women are grateful to have found chiropractic care for long-lasting relief of pregnancy-related low back pain. Many women suffer during their pregnancies, but that’s no reason why you have to.

Headaches

Headaches are another very common symptom that can occur during pregnancy or after giving birth. Roughly 39% of women who give birth experience pregnancy or post-partum headaches. Not all headaches are a common symptom, but the most common types of headaches are tension headaches, cluster headaches, and migraine attacks.

The causes of these headaches vary throughout the pregnancy. Some of them are under the woman’s control, and some aren’t, so it’s essential to manage the ones you can control. Causes of headaches during the first trimester include:

• Stress
• Hormonal Changes
• Weight Changes
• Higher Blood Volume
• Dehydration
• Lack of Sleep
• Nausea
• Poor Nutrition
• Low Blood Sugar Levels
• Lack of Physical Activity
• Sensitivity to Light

In the second and third trimesters, high blood pressure, extra weight, diet, muscle strain and tightness, diabetes, lack of sleep, and poor posture are some of the main causes.

To allow for a smooth and comfortable pregnancy, you must control the things you can and minimize the impact of the ones you can not

Urinary Incontinence

A certain amount of urinary incontinence is expected during pregnancy. Much of the blame for this involuntary peeing is the dramatic change in hormone production. In particular, the hormone Relaxin comes into play here. It has a powerful relaxing effect on the muscles and ligaments of the body, especially the pelvis, which can result in some light incontinence.

Of course, there are steps that you can take to minimize incontinence. Avoiding caffeinated drinks, soda, and alcohol will make incontinence much less likely. Keeping your weight gain to a moderate amount can also help. This will also help minimize constipation. One of the main ways you can lessen the impact and hassle of incontinence on your life is to strengthen the muscles of your pelvic floor by practicing Kegel exercises regularly.

Although unpleasant, some urinary incontinence comes with the territory of pregnancy. More often than not, it’s nothing to worry about.

Sciatica

One of the most significant parts of the anatomy of the lower back is the sciatic nerve. This large nerve travels from the lower back down past the hips and butt, down the legs. When the sciatic nerve is impinged or pressed on, pain traces along the sciatic nerve. Sometimes the sciatica symptoms worsen to the point where it’s not just pain. Numbness, tingling, or weakness in the feet also result from pressure on the sciatic nerve.

There are several pregnancy-related causes of sciatica. These include: the expanding of the uterus, the head of the baby resting on the nerve, increased fluid retention, weight gain, the shifting of the mother’s center of gravity, and a herniated or bulged disc. Chiropractic care can help a great deal with these symptoms because of the wonderful way it brings the woman’s body back into balance, ease, and peace. We can help encourage those symptoms to disappear by removing the pressure from that nerve.

Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction

Most pregnant women experience pain in their pubic symphysis at some point during their pregnancy. As many as 60% of pregnant women suffer through this extreme pain. The pain may get more intense as delivery approaches, and manifests in one of three ways: mild discomfort, sudden pain shooting from the front or back of your pelvis, or steady pain that radiates through your lower abdomen, back, groin, perineum, or thigh.

SPD may be more extreme with certain movements: walking, going up or down stairs, bending forward, adjusting your position in bed, raising yourself out of bed, getting in and out of the car, or standing on one leg. In some cases, there may be other symptoms, too: feeling fatigued for no real reason, hearing a clicking or grinding sound coming from your pelvis, or having difficulties peeing or pooping.

In conjunction with chiropractic care, custom therapeutic exercises and stretches can help relieve pelvic pain during pregnancy.

Frequently Asked Questions