Physiotherapy during pregnancy

There is no doubt that pregnancy is an unusual period in the life of every woman. Unfortunately, ladies who are preparing for motherhood or are already pregnant, rarely decide on physical activity. However, especially pelvic floor muscle exercises are crucial for delivery. Avoiding physical activity is mainly due to the fact that women are not aware of the importance of these exercises. If they acquire the appropriate knowledge, they can affect the already existing pain and prevent many problems that affect pregnant women. It is best that preventive measures occur in the period before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after termination.

Ailments of pregnant women

During pregnancy, various pains appear. Most often, pregnant women struggle with pain in the spine, joints, sciatica, lymphoedema of the lower extremities. Urinary incontinence can also often occur. Where do pains come during pregnancy? This is the result of the walls of the uterus enlarging, which can increase its weight by up to 20 times. Thus, it causes changes in the setting of the sacrum with a deepening of lordosis of the lumbar spine. It is in the third trimester when the moving centre of gravity disturbs the distribution of forces that we can observe the greatest intensity of pain.

Unfortunately, but in pregnancy it can also be painful in sacroiliac pain. It often projects on the buttocks, which makes it difficult to walk, raise legs or sit down. Due to overload of the spine and muscle tension, sciatic nerve irritation may also occur. As a result, we are dealing with back pain, lower limbs and buttocks. We can observe their weakness and numbness.

Pregnant women also often complain of lymphoedema. This problem occurs due to the narrowing of the drainage pathways from the pelvic region. This type of ailment is significantly worse due to limited activity and weight gain. Urinary incontinence can also be a bad problem. It affects pregnant women usually in the third trimester and after termination. The weakened pelvic floor muscles are to blame. You can’t hide that it is embarrassing and very annoying. What affects the relaxation of the pelvic floor muscles? Progesterone, a pregnancy hormone that is produced in early pregnancy by corpus luteum cells and then by the placenta. Because of the baby’s weight and pressure during delivery, the pelvic floor muscles stretch. This is why the muscles that clamp the urethra may become weak. Unfortunately, but after delivery there may be more of this kind of unpleasant consequences.

Physiotherapy and pregnancy

If we want to avoid many problems affecting a pregnant woman, it is worth choosing physiotherapy. Pelvic floor muscle training will avoid unpleasant ailments, and will additionally prepare for delivery. Trained muscles will work much better when the baby passes through the birth canal. They will also facilitate its repression. The pressure phase is shortened, and also less painful. If the pelvic floor muscles are flexible, the risk of injury and overstretching is reduced. We will recover much faster after delivery.

In our clinic, we recommend various methods. Physical activity will play a key role in the physiotherapy of pregnant women, as long as there are no contraindications to its exercise. When it comes to exercises that are definitely worth doing during pregnancy, these include pelvic floor muscle training, anticoagulant, breathing, loosening, strengthening, stretching and posture correcting exercises.

Exercises during pregnancy

The therapy is selected individually to the patient’s needs and abilities. These can be manual techniques that aim to restore proper joint mobility and proper muscle tone, posture correction based on stabilising techniques, kinesiotaping, individually selected exercises whose task is to stretch and strengthen muscles, restore and maintain proper mobility in joints, oxygenation body and cardiovascular stimulation. The first stage is an interview with a pregnant woman, followed by the development of a physiotherapy plan.