Pregnancy Stretches for Back Pain: Lower Back

Pregnancy is a magical and miraculous part of life. I mean, think about it. Your amazingly designed body is building a whole, complete little person from SCRATCH. No matter how wonderful pregnancy is, it does not come without a sacrifice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unpleasant pregnancy symptoms. The single biggest complaint I hear from the sweet mamas who come to my prenatal yoga classes is low back pain.

(Have another common pregnancy problem? I made a whole series for my YouTube channel addressing common pregnancy problems through yoga. Check it out!)

What’s Going On?

During pregnancy, there’s kind of a perfect storm of things that can contribute to a mama’s back pain. First of all, that hormone, relaxin, starts to increase the flexibility in the pelvis so that the hips can widen a bit when it’s time for that sweet baby to be born. Flexibility can be a great thing, but too much flexibility can cause instability.

As mama’s belly starts to expand forward the weight of the baby can cause her to pelvis to tilt forward and down, too. This action can further compress the lumbar spine and, over time, make things pretty uncomfortable in that area. That’s not good news for the sacrum and low back area, which is often hyper mobile to start with for a lot of women.

At the same time, a lot of pregnant mamas (at least in our culture here in the Western part of the world) spend most of their day sitting–maybe at a desk or in the car ushering older kids from school to other activities. While, it’s great for pregnant mamas to be off their feet and resting plenty, sitting too much can cause chronic tightness in the hip area.

So, what you have is tight muscles pulling on a loosened joint + low back compression from bad posture. I mean, no wonder so many mamas deal with low back pain–especially by the end of their pregnancies.

Ouch!

How Can Prenatal Yoga Help Alleviate Low Back Pain?

There are plenty of things you can do to help you handle pregnancy back pain. You can buy a brace to help support your belly, hips, and low back. You can see a chiropractor (I recommend this anyway!) or a body worker to help you align your bones and soften your muscles. (Charleston mamas, do you know my friends Danica Todd, an amazing body worker/doula, and Angela Dixon, a chiropractor at New Hope Chiropractic?) These things can offer much-needed, near immediate relief for the discomfort you’re feeling.

(DISCLAIMER: Skip your practice and talk to your doctor or other trusted health provided if you have extreme pain or pain that continues for more than a couple days.)

Of course, the best way to alleviate low back pain is to avoid it in the first place. A regular, daily yoga practice is one of the best ways to address all the issues that often create that lower back pain in the first place so you can prevent it! Pregnancy stretches for back pain–like those you’ll see below!–can also offer huge relief once pain has set in, too. Promise! Just know it’s not a one-and-done kind of thing… You should incorporate yoga into your daily routine for the best results!

Not to mention, yoga is something you can do FOR YOURSELF. You don’t have to have an appointment or drive across town in rush hour traffic.

4 Ways Prenatal Yoga Helps Low Back Pain

Prenatal yoga heightens awareness. One of the most important ways that prenatal yoga can help mamas to prevent or find relieve from their low back pain is simply that it can heighten their overall awareness. Yoga is one of the best tools to help people begin to notice how their hold their bodies, feel exactly when things start to feel tweaky or out of balance, and notice what helps and what hurts with more accuracy. Plus, that awareness of your body and mind can help you to take things easy and do less when you need to.

Prenatal yoga improves posture. Speaking of awareness, many mamas (and people in general!) almost never think about the way they stand. It’s so easy for pregnant mamas to slip into that belly forward position that can compress the low back. (And once the baby is born, posture often gets even worse as mamas carry baby with one arm or on one hip more than the other side.) Over time, bad posture patterns can definitely create imbalances in the body and hurt your back.

Prenatal yoga opens tight hips and hamstrings. Some of the poses you’ll see below are the gold standard when it comes to opening and reducing tension on the hip and hamstring muscles. It might seem weird to focus on your hips and hamstrings when it’s your back that’s sore. Remember, these muscles connect to your low back. When they’re too tight or tense they can pull on the sacrum and low back area. Sometimes just a little time stretching a bit every day can give you much needed relief!

Prenatal yoga strengthens core muscles. Most people know that when you’re pregnant common abdominal work like crunches are off limits. But that doesn’t mean that you should stop working your core. You need a strong core to support your growing baby. (BONUS: It will help with labor and recovery, too!).