Sometimes we forget to sit back and give our bodies appreciation to all of the amazing things the pregnant body does! Not only are we growing another tiny human, but our bodies are literally transforming into a home for them.
Our organs, bone structure, tissues, brain and digestion…just to name a few are working together to create a safe space and give our babies everything they need to grow!
While all of this amazingness is going on…it’s not always fun and exciting for us. Thanks to weight gain, fatigue, swelling, discomfort, nausea, food aversions, back pain, insomnia…pregnancy can be really uncomfortable.
- Organs get squished to make room for baby.
- Diaphragm gets squished and becomes difficult to function optimally (which we need to help us with deep core breathing!)
- Rib cage spreads open, still need more room!
- Abdominals make the move and spread open to help house baby.
- While all of this is going on up top, our pelvic floor is taking a tremendous beating, absorbing all the weight and pressure of our pregnancy.
Let’s move on to the back, our back muscles try to help out their friends in the front and begin overcompensating which can cause discomfort.
This doesn’t come without consequence, because of this compensation, we can begin to hunch forward and/or arch our backs. Think tucking your pelvis / butt to stand comfortably, this puts pressure on our knees.
These changes are not limited to our physical body, we get all of the hormonal changes too! Some of them include ligament laxity…which causes everything to be what I like to call “loosey goosey”. This helps our body to be able to carry the baby but it also causes us to drop things or have what’s described as a soft grip.
And then we get the sleep deprivation toward the end of pregnancy, the stress, emotional distress and even anxiety over welcoming a new baby!
So, this list is not to scare you of course, its really to give yourself a break and remind you, that you don’t have to sit back while all of this is going on. There are TONS of movements you can do to help manage these symptoms and make some of these annoying aches and pains go away!
You have to remember, these changes happened in about 1 year, not over night. So you can’t expect everything to “bounce back” within a week. Give yourself a break, give yourself grace, love and compassion. Your body just did A LOT, so next time you want to be hard on yourself, think about yourself being Superwoman instead!
