Pregnancy and Post Partum
Embracing change, nurturing comfort:
Cotlew St. Osteopathy – your partner in pregnancy and beyond.
Osteopathy provides comprehensive care for women throughout pregnancy and postpartum, addressing postural changes, pain, and physical stresses to support optimal function and comfort during this transformative period.
Why Osteopathy
Osteopathy is a healthcare practice that is hands on. We use movement of the body focusing on joints, muscles, nerves, lymphatics and circulation to help improve the underlying function of the area. When mobility and function improve, quite often there is a reduction in inflammation and pain.
We can start to feel better. It’s a different way of addressing discomfort and pain without the use of drugs. Australian Osteopaths are university trained, government registered, allied health professionals.
Pregnancy and Post Partum Osteopathy
Why would you see an Osteopath during your pregnancy? Well, a woman’s body is going to undergo the most extraordinary and possibly the largest transformation and change during those 9 months.
Some of the postural changes that can occur, start early in the first 4 months. There is a posterior tilting occurring in the pelvis as the uterus begins to grow. We move further along in the pregnancy and approximately 80% will end up with a lordotic curve of the lumbar spine.
The weight falling onto the pubic symphysis and pelvic floor as the pelvis starts to roll anterior again. The breasts swell and feel heavy, allowing the shoulders to roll forward and give rise to a tightening through the arms. The hips adopt a wider stance with more weightbearing through the hindfoot and lateral structures of the legs.
The baby grows in the womb and the extra weight changes the center of gravity. In the last 5 weeks, Relaxin kicks in. It’s a hormone designed to soften ligaments and tissues in time for labour. This often just adds mechanical stress to the body if it can’t accommodate these postural changes.
Pregnant women often complain about lower back pain or pelvic pain. This is partially due to the different ways that weight is carried and how the body accommodates those changes in posture.
Osteopathically, Victoria looks to encourage the posture into an optimum functioning position and to help disperse uneven tensions throughout the body. This helps to enhance breathing and pelvic mechanics and assists the mother’s body to transition during this time.
Post Partum care involves the time that it takes from when the body recovers from pregnancy, the effects of labour and delivery, and now looking after a newborn. There are still hormonal changes on the tissues of the body, possible trauma from delivery, sleep deprivation, feeding and breastfeeding challenges and lots of lifting required.
Osteopathic care during this time, can help ease painful symptoms of musculoskeletal stress that can come from poor nursing positions, and the lifting and carrying of children. Osteopathic treatment not only helps to ease discomfort but also promotes better blood flow and lymphatic drainage.
Why
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