Episode #17 - 5 tips to manage back pain postpartum
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In this episode, Dayna and Rhonda discuss some strategies you can try to minimize back pain postpartum.
We go into detail with each of these tips below:
1️⃣ Make sure you’re resting enough
2️⃣ Change up your repetitive postures/ activities
3️⃣ Use pain-relieving positions to offset repetitive postures/ positions
4️⃣ Movement is good for pain
5️⃣ Manage your expectations of what your body is ready/able to do in a day
We’re excited for you to listen to this episode and hope you find some of these tips helpful. Let us know in the comments!
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Episode 17 - 5 tips to manage back pain postpartum
We're excited to have you join us for this episode of Pelvic Health and Fitness. I'm Dayna Morellato, Mom, Orthopedic and Pelvic Health Physiotherapist. And I'm Rhonda Chamberlain, Mom, Orthopedic Physiotherapist and Pre Postnatal Fitness Coach. On this show, we have open and honest conversations about all phases of motherhood, including fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, menopause, and everything in between.
We also provide helpful education and information on fitness, the pelvic floor, and many aspects of women's health, including physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Please remember as you listen to this podcast that this is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical conditions. Please contact your medical provider if you have specific questions or concerns.
Thanks so much for joining us. Grab a cup of coffee. Or wine. And enjoy!
Everyone welcome to episode 17 of the pelvic health and fitness podcast. So we're going to try to do another, uh, quick one for you all today. Um, busy moms. I know January's busy time. So today we're going to talk about five tips for managing low back pain or back pain in general, postpartum, which is a super common one for me.
Um, I don't know about you, Dayna, but that's probably the number one, like pain complaint I would say with my clients. Absolutely. I would say next to any sort of pelvic floor dysfunction that I see in clinic, back pain is their number two, um, concern. So, and it is very much tied into the core and your pelvic floor.
We've talked about sort of the idea of the core canister in earlier episodes. And so if you have back pain, particularly if you're seeing any sort of physio or chiropractor and it's, You're doing some of these things that we're going to chat about today and you're still not getting any relief. I encourage you to maybe reach out to a pelvic floor physio and see if maybe some dysfunction is coming from that floor.
Yeah, but I'm gonna start with number one. So, uh, our first tip for managing back pain postpartum is to make sure you're resting enough. Um, and what is rest? I have this conversation all the time, particularly in those first six weeks rest, um, for your body can come from changing your Posture. So again, especially in those early days and weeks postpartum, we spent a lot of time sitting kind of curved around those cute little babies looking down, rounded shoulders, rounded upper back, um, shortened hamstring, shortened hip flexors are all big, um, culprits of back pain.
So taking yourself out of those postures when you can, when you pass baby off to your partner, even just standing up nice and tall, kind of doing a forward four fold, maybe like you do in yoga, just changing your posture can, can really be helpful. Um, doing excessive lifting in a day, motherhood is physical.
We're probably going to say that a bunch during this episode, but there is. So much lifting. So if you've been lifting babies and toddlers and car seats and strollers in and out of the car, that can cause a lot of discomfort or pain in the back. So trying to take a break from that, if you were able to pass that off to a partner or just trying to break it up throughout the day.
Any sort of public floor dysfunction, or if your public floor is tired and isn't able to help support the bottom part of that core canister, um, again, just a little reminder of the canister with your abdominal wall in the front, your back muscles in the back, your pelvic floor is the bottom of the can and your diaphragm or your breathing muscle is the top of the can.
So if you've got a pelvic floor, that's just pooped from the marathon that was pregnancy in the. sprint that was birth, uh, then it can't quite do its job as well. And the low back will take some of that extra work on. And then the last bit of this also is just your core's healing in general. So your abdominal wall and pelvic floor, if they're still very much in that healing phase, the extra work can move to your back.
Mm hmm. And I think, um, it goes without saying, adding into the resting chat is sleep, right? And so in those early phases, it sounds almost impossible to get more sleep. You're up a ton. But I remember in our postpartum mental health chat with Jessica, she mentioned, you know, it doesn't have to necessarily be that you're napping throughout the day, but just making sure you're resting, right?
So just, you know, if baby's lying beside you, just also lie down to and watch some Netflix and just. Rest your body, rest your mind. That also counts towards, um, encouraging healing. Yeah, and another thing I've been chatting a lot lately with clients about is, I'm not sure if you've read it, We're on a Burnout by Emily Nagelsky.
No, but I want to. It's a fantastic read if anybody out there is listening and it's mainly dealing with stress and kind of completing the stress cycle but she talks a lot or I should say they she has written it with her sister. Um, they talk a lot about kind of appreciating and noticing when you're doing things that relieve stress and I think it's important for rest too because people think that rest.
Does have to just be sleep and it's important to note that when you're lying down just beside baby and you're watching Netflix, make a mental note. I am resting. Yes. And I think that that's a positive reinforcement when you're feeling like, you know, You're not able to get enough rest. Noticing when you're doing different kinds of rest in a day can be important.
Yeah, and it reminds me of when I was in the early phases postpartum and I was managing prolapse symptoms. And I was sort of working through the athlete brain mindset and You know, after I had Sadie, my first, I did get back to moving and working out five, six days a week again, after Teagan, I had to sort of, you know, talk myself out of that incessant need to move and strength train five days a week because my body wasn't loving it. And so I remember on, so I sort of like parented myself and coached myself to only quote unquote work out three days a week and like almost force myself to have rest days, which is, was like brand new to me. And so I remember on those rest days and this was very early postpartum.
I was like two, three months postpartum. Laying on the couch watching Netflix and feeling guilty and feeling like I should be working out, you know, I have a chunk of time right now. But yeah, I was, you know, trying to be kind to myself in those moments and being like, no rest is just as important. This is very healing for your body right now.
You know, you can work out tomorrow. Right. So just kind of coaching yourself. And like, I always say parenting yourself, because how would you talk to like your child or a friend, right? How would you coach a friend? If they're dealing with pain and symptoms, you wouldn't say you should still be working out every day.
What are you doing? Right. Absolutely. And these things change. Like I were focusing or I focused a little bit more on those early days, but the whole post once postpartum always. postpartum. And so any sort of extra load from baby, toddlers, sleep regressions, hormone changes in your body, all of these things sometimes just require more rest from body immune systems, colds, you know, so yes, rest, rest, rest, and more rest.
Yes. Yeah, I think many of us don't do enough of it. Yeah, absolutely not. Yes. Okay. So number two, so tips for managing back pain postpartum. So Dayna sort of touched on the posture piece, but I always like to remind my clients, um, many of them come to me right away saying like, I know I have terrible posture and I know I have to change it.
And so I always try to reassure them. And I think, again, this comes from one of our mentors, podcast, but he always says, you know, you don't. necessarily have bad posture. There's no such thing as good and bad postures. We don't need to sort of like, uh, demonize posture. It's more so that we tend to have favorite postures that we do a lot of.
So, you know, the ones that sort of get demonized are like slouching, right? Rounded shoulders, holding baby on our hip, right? All of those ones. Uh, even baby wearing. I know a lot of people come to me with like guilt about, Oh, I know my back pain. I'm wearing my baby too much. Right. And they kind of like blame themselves for that pain.
Right. So, so yeah, just reminding you all that, you know, it's not necessarily your bad posture that's causing your pain. It's the fact that you don't have enough variety of postures and movements in your day. So similar to kind of what Dayna was saying. So, you know, if you're someone, again, this is not even necessarily postpartum, but if you're someone that works at a desk job and you're sitting most often throughout your day, just giving yourself, I always say to my clients like set reminders on your computer to get up every one to two hours, go for a walk around the office, go for a walk outside, do some squats.
Um, do some stretches, you know, like again, it doesn't have to be this complicated thing. Just adding variety to the day. Um, if you are someone that wears baby again, just you know, don't feel guilty about that. Sometimes these things are unavoidable, especially in those early phases. You're going to be sitting in repetitive postures a ton.
Uh, feeding your baby is another one too. So just again, just a little, little bite sized things that you can do when you're not doing those things. So can you lay down on the floor and do some stretching? Uh, can, again, can you do like a little walk around the house? Can you go up and down the stairs a couple of times, just anything to just add a bit of variety to those constant static positions?
Absolutely. Um, which kind of leads into number three. So using. Movements or we call them sort of pain control or pain relieving positions to help offset any, um, workload on your body like baby wearing. So zed lying is a favorite of both of ours. So zed lying is where you lie on the floor and you place your legs up on a couch, a chair or an exercise ball.
So you're sort of supported. behind the knees. And if you can picture that your body would be in the shape of a Z. This can be such a fantastic recovery position for the low back can relieve a lot of tension on the muscles, the ligaments, the tendons and everything. It is a little bit of an anti gravity position for the pelvic floor.
So you've taken body weight, gravity, all the pelvic organs up off the pelvic floor. It is really, I use it as kind of a cure all for anything from sort of the belly button down truthfully. Um, yeah. And people will always ask how long to lie there, Rhonda. I usually say like two minutes minimum or an entire show, basically, however long you're comfortable there.
Yeah. So if it feels good, just go with it, right? If it feels good, hang out there. Yeah. It's fantastic. Side lying on the couch with some pillows between your knees can feel really nice. I love cat cow. Um, so if you're not familiar with that is it would be in a four pointer on your hands and knees position and sort of gently drop your tummy down like you're curving your back and looking forward at the wall in front of you.
And then alternating that with sort of an angry cat position. So if you can think about a cat sort of when it's angry, it rounds its back up the opposite way, arches its back, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Um, and just alternating nice and gently between those positions. Uh, and child's pose is another beautiful, uh, position that can be really helpful for low back pain, where you put your feet right together, take your knees nice and wide and sit your bum back onto your heels and then just breathe deeply.
And all of these positions come back to that breath. Nice, big inhales, nice, um, slow, easy exhales. Don't have to be doing Kegels, just letting off some tension in that core canister. Yes. So good. And yes, um, you read my mind cause I was going to touch on the, the breathing piece too, because that is the fascinating thing.
So we, you know, we've talked in this podcast often about the importance of breathing, the importance of relaxing and releasing tension through the pelvic floor. But what I'm starting to learn more and more about when it comes to back pain. So often, uh, clients that, you know, deal with chronic pain anywhere in the body, the body naturally as a protective mechanism will hold added tension in those areas, right?
So, um, I think there are studies to show that someone with chronic back pain, if they do sort of muscle testing in that area. they are always holding a bit of tension in those back muscles. So, which I think sometimes too, people along the way might have been taught that if you have back pain, you have to, it must be because you have a weak core, which they've sort of debunked that whole thing too.
So, um, then you might have been taught to like always. contract your tummy and always just hold tension in your that core canister, right? And so trying to sort of break that habit with people is very challenging. So I find, and you often don't know you're consciously doing that, right? So it's more like subconscious that you're doing it.
So if you can get into a position like zed lying or Um, even cat cow, you can kind of feel that child's pose and just really breathing. I get my low back clients to like really breathe into their back. So prone lying is a good one for that too. So prone lying is just laying on your belly with like a pillow under your hips and just really focusing, like close your eyes and like try to breathe into your back, which a lot of people are like, I didn't even know I could do that.
Right. So. Breathing into your back and just really noticing if you're holding tension in those muscles. And a lot of times clients are like, Oh my goodness, I didn't realize how much I was holding tension there or sucking in my tummy. Um, you know, contracting my abs to keep that pain away. So yeah, spending deliberate time.
You know, I always give the, uh, goal like three to five times a day, if you can, if you're on mat leave, this is again, something in between feeds, if you can even do it for one to two minutes, um, just giving that back a rest and time to just relax those muscles. Yes, I think it's important if in this moment, just stop what you're doing, relax your jaw.
Relax your tummy. Relax your bum. How many people were just holding tension when Dayna said that? Myself included. Yes. Okay, so number four, um, this is one of our favorite, uh, sayings, which Dayna learned this from one of her... Um, former coworkers motion is lotion and this is, you know, my bias is strength training and movement.
So this is my jam. And so just reminding ourselves that when we're dealing with pain, it's tempting and, you know, old school advice would be to rest and yes, rest is in there, but also so is movement. So movement is so good for our joints to lubricate our joints, get blood flow to the area. release, feel good hormones, which help with pain.
Um, and again, just adding that variety of movement. So it's, um, you know, adds resilience to our tissues, all these awesome things that movement gives us. And again, it doesn't have to be this hardcore intense thing. So if we're dealing with pain, I would argue, we don't want it to be, we kind of want to ease back into movement.
So again, things like mobility poses, mobility work, um, glute bridges, side bridges, like just. start to slowly get back into some movement again, working with a physiotherapist and a pre postnatal fitness coach like Dayna and myself is very valuable for these times because you might be nervous to start moving and worried about making your pain worse.
Um, squats, squats are so incredible for back pain, right? Again, just modifying them and changing them in a way that doesn't bother your symptoms. So people might say, well, they hurt my back. Well, how about we try sitting to a chair and then standing up? How does that feel? What if we change the width of your feet?
What if we work on your breathing and change your breathing pattern? How does all of those modifications make your back feel? So I think that's the thing is like, we're sort of quick. And a lot of people might be quick to just. Get rid of movement altogether because they're nervous or things hurt.
There's so many ways we can modify movements to still continue moving and also honor and minimize that, that pain. Absolutely. I think, and again, thinking pain is scary, like not. decreasing or diminishing any of that. And pain has a protective function, but at the end of the day, our muscles, our ligaments, our joints, they're made to move and it can actually cause more pain if we don't move.
So I think it's important to find what you can do, even if it's just breathing to start. Yes. We love the breath. Love the breathing. All right. And our last tip for today, number five is to manage the expectations of what your body is ready or able to do in a day. So, I'm gonna say it again. I'm going to have t shirts made.
Motherhood is physical. There is so much more movement in your day as a mom at baseline than there was before. Lifting, picking up, putting down, strollers, car seats, baby wearing, bending over while they're putting, changing diapers. Like, oh gosh, get out. I remember the first time my daughter rolled under the crib.
Like, I, you know, so, so much movement in a day. So much physicality. So managing, if you have a really busy, you know, 10 month old that you're kind of chasing around a day, maybe we're not going to do a heavy lifting workout, those sorts of things. Or those are the days that maybe we really want to make sure we're getting in the Zed line and some cat cows and sort of managing the load on our back or our body in general, um, in order to, to avoid any increase in pain.
Yes. And I think you and I are similar that, uh, also managing our expectations and managing the pressure we put on ourselves to always be productive. Right. So I think on mat leave, especially my first mat leave, I really struggled with like being bored to be honest. And so, yeah, I just had this incessant need that like, I always had to be doing something.
So whether it's working out or cleaning or organizing or, you know, always. Being busy with my body. And so the second time around, I think because I had symptoms, I got better at that, but just, yeah, like trying to remove that incessant need, um, to be productive and yeah, just resting when you can resting and appreciating what is rest back to number one, we've come full circle circle.
I love it. Yes. We hope that you found some of these tips for managing back pain postpartum helpful and let us know what you think. Thanks for listening to today's podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you liked what you heard, we would love if you could share this with a friend, leave us a review, or subscribe to anywhere that you listen to your podcasts.
Thanks for being here.
Thanks for listening to today's podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you liked what you heard, we would love if you could share this with a friend, leave us a review, or subscribe to anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for being here.
