Osteopathy for Pregnancy
“Thank you for helping me have a much happier second pregnancy. I felt so much stronger, more mobile and better able to navigate each stage of it this time around.”
Supporting moms during their pregnancy and postpartum journey is one of my favourite things!
Pregnancy is an amazing time BUT is also one that demands an incredible amount of physical change in your body month after month. Osteopathy’s gentle, global approach which encourages all the moving parts of the body to work holistically together is a really powerful way of avoiding and treating common pregnancy issues.
Being pregnant and giving birth with a body that is strong, aligned and mobile makes a huge difference in how you feel throughout and in your recovery afterwards.
Pregnancy: A Whole-Body Affair
From the bottoms of your feet to the crown of your head, there is no part of your body that isn’t involved in adapting and supporting you and your growing baby
Ideally, all the parts of your pregnant body are mobile enough to adapt freely around your growing baby throughout the different stages of pregnancy and delivery in a kind of harmonious “danse à deux“.
But each pregnant body has its own unique history of injuries, surgeries and postural habits. For example we might not notice that eg. one hip is a little stuck after that old snowboarding fall, or that our diaphragm and ribcage are tight from sitting in front of a laptop all day but these areas can start painfully talking to us when they can’t adapt around our growing belly the way they’re supposed to.
What is Osteopathy for Pregnancy and How Can it Help?
Osteopathy is a safe, gentle, hands-on manual therapy that focuses on releasing tensions in the muscles and fascia, improving alignment and encouraging balanced movement of the bony skeleton to help all the pieces of the body’s architecture move harmoniously together.
Osteopathic care can help relieve / avoid common pregnancy annoyances like:
• pelvic girdle pain
• sciatica
• pubic symphysis dysfunction
• low back, sacroiliac and hip pain
• reflux and heartburn
• rib, neck and shoulder tension
• carpal tunnel syndrome
while also helping prepare your body for delivery.
Specifically for pregnancy, osteopaths are very interested in things like:
• are the sacrum, hip bones and lumbar spine aligned nicely and moving well? (important to support the big postural and weight distribution changes of pregnancy, and allow the most flexible space possible for the baby to pass through during delivery)
• are the “twin trampolines” of the pelvic floor and diaphragm each moving well so that they can better manage the pressures of the growing belly and coordinate well together during labour?
• techniques to calm the nervous system, which are equally great for both mom and baby
Since I’m also an athletic therapist, I also care a lot about things like:
• strengthening the shoulders and upper back to counterbalance your growing breasts and the hours you’ll soon be spending carrying and feeding baby (this pays off big time!)
• strengthening the muscles that support your pelvis and low back, to better balance the growing weight of your belly, the changes in your centre of gravity and increasing laxity of the pelvic bones while helping avoid pubic symphysis pain, sacroiliac pain and pregnancy-induced sciatica
What’s the overall vision of osteopathic care during pregnancy?
Since each part of your body affects how all the other parts of your body function, an area that doesn’t move well can be uncomfortable but also create a whole cascade of compensations elsewhere in the body.
For example, I often see clients with “grippy” diaphragms and tight ribcages. This might be caused by stress, from workstation posture or could just be how your body settled after a previous pregnancy (or all three). Normally this is just a mild annoyance that we can live with, but pregnancy is a whole new challenge level of the video game!
Once the pregnant belly starts expanding upwards but the ribcage can’t expand elastically the way it’s supposed to, this can get very uncomfortable quickly and contribute to symptoms of acid reflux, shortness of breath and general achiness in the ribcage. And if the uterus can’t expand upwards & backwards freely because of the tensions above it, it will start pushing prematurely downwards (into your hips and pelvic floor) and forwards (encouraging a diastasis recti), which can create a whole bunch of other issues that you would rather avoid.
The key to treating a case like this is releasing tension in the ribcage so that it can more comfortably accept your growing baby (along with all the abdominal organs) pushing up into it. Gentle hands-on osteopathic treatment to encourage mobility of the ribs and elasticity of the soft tissues gives the uterus room to grow with more ease. This both feels much better and avoids creating a cascade of problems elsewhere, win-win!
My Why
As the mom of two kids myself I really love helping other women feel healthy, happy and empowered throughout their pregnancies. It’s much easier to enjoy each precious moment when you’re feeling good in your own body!
When I was pregnant with my first baby, someone told me “Ah, you’ll see- the nights with a newborn are long, but the years go by so fast!”. I can confirm that this is true and I want to help you enjoy each step of the journey with your little one.
In addition to the perinatal courses included in the 5-year osteopathic manual therapy program of the Collège d’Études Ostéopathiques, I’ve taken several excellent postgraduate perinatal courses including a Spinning Babies course and am one of the few therapists in Montreal certified in Sarah Duvall’s Pregnancy and Postpartum Corrective Exercise work.
When to start treatments during pregnancy?
I usually suggest coming in for a treatment BEFORE even becoming pregnant, but if not possible you can start any time. You don't need to wait until you're in pain to book an appointment!
We’ll meet, do an evaluation and come up with a plan to best support you wherever you’re at.
Regular gentle treatments will help you adapt comfortably to the different stages of your pregnancy, making room for your growing baby and preparing your body for delivery.
If you're interested in a perinatal treatment or have any questions, please send me an email or book an appointment via the link below.
Heather is an osteopath D.O., certified Athletic Therapist BSc CAT(C) and mom of two working in Montreal, Quebec.