Being pregnant can be an amazing time for soon-to-be mothers, but oftentimes it can be painful as well, because many suffer from back pain. But there are some exercises that can help. Here to show us what to do is Dr. Hooman Melamed from The Spine Pro and model Heather Frudakis. Thanks so much for joining us, the both of you. And thanks so much, Heather. You are in your third trimester, congratulations.
Yeah, first child.
But experiencing back pain, as we all do when we’re about to have a baby. Doctor, thanks so much for joining us. First of all, what are the causes of back pain through all the trimesters and even post-delivery?
Well, actually, even going back, 80 percent of people at some point in their life, they get the back pain. And you know, in pregnant women it becomes a little bit more common because your center of gravity goes forward, right? So it’s like having a gallon of milk. If you hold a gallon here, it’s much easier than holding the gallon up here in the front. So in the pregnancy, as it grows, it’s like the gallon of milk becomes more and more forward and that puts more strain on your back. And not to mention the hormonal changes, it causes a lot of relaxation of the ligaments, the tendons. You’re more prone to injury. So the pregnancy goes, you become more and more prone to injury. So the steps would be to prevent and strengthen your back for, from the injuries from happening. And I should go even a step back: before you get pregnant, you should start getting in shape.
And Heather, let’s show us some first trimester exercises. And did you try doing this when you’re [inaudible]?
Yeah. Yes.
So one of the exercises to do is that you imagine that you’re a wall. We don’t have a wall here, but we can demonstrate. Okay, so having standing in the wall, basically Heather would go down. Now we can’t go all the way because there’s no wall. I’m having, basically, pretending my hand as a wall here. You want to make sure your toes are always in the front of your knees, basically, when you go down. And as you’re going down you want to hold that position, and then you want to squeeze your glutes, your butt muscles together, and at the same time you want to bring your, basically your belly button, you want to pretend like it’s coming back as you’re getting at squeeze, and that kind of starts engaging your core muscles.
And these are exercises you can do at home. You don’t have to go to a gym.
No, absolutely not. These are like the part of the Pilates. You know, you can definitely start incorporating these exercises. This is one of the exercises you can do in first trimester, second or third, or even, as I said, before or after pregnancy.
Okay. And your second trimester, you’re starting to really feel that, you’re starting a really show. What are some exercises for that?
[inaudible] the, the lunges is another great exercises to do. So basically with the lunges, we want to go, Heather, you want to go forward basically, and again the same thing, you always want to make sure your toes are in front of your knees. And another way to do, at the same time you can have like imagining of five pounds of weight on each arm. So as Heather goes down, basically the weights go up like that.
And that’s really hard because you have so much weight, it’s hard to keep balance without falling over, right?
It’s a great way of building proprioception, like neuromuscular feedback, and that’s another way to engage the core. Also you wanna have the feet shoulder width apart.
And what about your third trimester, which is what you’re in right now, Heather?
Mm-hm.
Another one is a back extension. You can have Heather go ahead, laid out. You can have resistant bands, basically. You put this on, it’s a little bit easier, and then you can have basically, and start engaging the back muscles. You imagine like you have a pencil back. Okay, and you want, basically, like you want to squeeze the pencil between your shoulder blades. One is the rows like that, or you can expand it back out like that. So basically just strengthening all of your back muscles, it’s very, very critical. I mean, there’s like incline push up, so you can do other lunges, like a little bit of squats. I mean, Pilates is a fantastic exercise to do.
And Heather, have you noticed changes in your back pain?
Yes, much better.
Yeah?
Yes, definitely.
Okay. And a point in her life, what she is looking forward to: post-delivery. What are some exercises you can do post-delivery?
I think, you know, basically continuing on with the, the exercise is definitely, getting as soon as you can get back to Pilates. And you know, just common sense stuff. For example, a lot of times, like, women, like, grabbing the child, they want to move over. You want to basically always, you don’t want to bend from your back, you want to bend from your knees. And it’s like, I’ve seen, like, a lot of, like, hands reach over behind and the car seats. You know, just get out of the car, it’s okay, go out, you know, come, it takes like 30 seconds, you know, it’s okay. Like, you want to avoid, like, twisting movements, and you always want to bend on your knees, not on your back, basically. And just imagine, like, how you are carrying the baby, to, I mean, don’t try to hold the baby if you’re ever, like, reaching there in the bed. You know, try to bend down and grab the baby like that, bring it to yourself rather than bending over.
And I’m doing that. About how long can you continue to do these exercises? Right up until the very end?
I mean, most women, sure, [inaudible] but I always say check with your OB-GYN, because there’s some women, because of some complications that happened during pregnancy, you may be on bed rest. Obviously you can’t do everything. So you’re always going to be with your OB-GYN doctor to make sure. But these exercises, if you can do it, by all means you should do it all.
Alright, great advice for even non-pregnant women. [inaudible] there is actually yoga for pregnant women too, so people can look into that. Fantastic. Dr. Melamed and Heather, thanks so much for joining us, and good luck with your baby. You’re gonna be great. Your back is gonna feel great, I can tell already. Thanks so much.
