My Pregnancy Sciatica
...and what finally helped.
Pregnancy is my favorite. From the 1st trimester nausea, to the food aversions, out-of-control bladder, loosening pelvis and lightening crotch. I mean, I glow : /. No, in all serious, I recognize that the gift of carrying a child is not to be taken for granted and I all-in-all I have had relatively "easy" pregnancies--if there is such a thing--and uneventful, healthy deliveries and babies. However, I'm a problem-solver, and sciatica was a problem that I experienced in all three of my pregnancies. So let's get into it.
What is sciatica?
- It's pain caused by pressure on your sciatic nerve, in my case caused by the shifts of pregnancy. It's characterized by pain radiating down one leg, starting from one hip.
What helped?
- Regular chiropractic to help keep body aligned and pressure off nerves.
- Squats and exercise to strengthen hip girdle muscles + keep muscles loose.
- Piriformis (deep glute) stretching: (the one that helped me)
- CBD muscle rub
The combination of the last two is when I really experienced serious relief. With my 3rd pregnancy, I tried to keep up with exercise and stretching, yet when sciatica started to crop up again towards the end, the piriformis stretches and CBD kept it in check and while my 3rd was overall my most difficult and painful pregnancy, the sciatica was never as bad for as long.
So there you go. Feel free to ask any questions!
xo Belle
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