Pregnancy

Pregnancy can cause a number of musculoskeletal symptoms that affect your every day life, including back pain, neck pain and Sciatica.

Conditions

As the baby grows, the mother’s centre of gravity shifts forwards, causing extra pressure on the back of the spine as she leans backwards to counterbalance.

This counterbalancing is caused by shortened muscles in the lower back and can place pressure on the nerves in the lower back, resulting in Sciatica.

The shift in centre of gravity, in combination with the extra weight can also cause a shift in walking (gait) pattern, which means that muscles which aren’t normally used are over firing and can cause back pain.

The techniques that we use at Wokingham Osteopaths are safe for mother and child, including a gentle combination of massage, articulation, stretches and sometimes even sports tape in order to relieve our pregnant patients of pregnancy related back pain.

Other pregnancy related conditions that Osteopathy may be able to help to treat include knee and hip pain, symphysis pubis disorder.

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Is Osteopathy safe for treating pregnancy?

Yes, osteopathy is perfectly safe for treating pregnancy. We use a variety of gentle but powerful techniques to help mother and baby. We avoid using manipulations (the short, quick thrusts used to “click” a patient’s spine) as there isn’t enough peer-review research to show it is safe.

As described above, lower back pain is a common symptom which responds very well to our combination of massage, stretching and articulating the problematic joints.

As with all ailments with which our patients present in the clinic, each treatment is bespoke and customised to the patient and their needs. We always give a diagnosis and describe what we would like to do before starting treatment.

Patients normally lie on their back or side, as for pretty obvious reasons they are unable to lie on their front but we also utilise massage chairs to give some space for bump and enable us to treat the patient as if they are lying on their front. Utilising sports tape (otherwise known as kinesiology tape) is also incredibly useful at helping to offload some of the weight from the front to higher up the back.

If you would like to make a booking for Osteopathy with Matt, Keri, Alex or Mo please click one of the buttons below

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