Prenatal

Chiropractic Care during Pregnancy

During pregnancy, there are multiple changes that a woman’s body goes through in order to create a healthy environment for the developing child. While those changes are good for the baby, some of them can take their toll on the mother’s body. The following pregnancy changes can result in a misaligned spine or joints:

• Protruding abdomen and increased back curve
• Pelvic changes
• Postural adaptations

Reestablishing pelvic balance and alignment is one reason to seek chiropractic care during pregnancy. When the pelvis is misaligned it may reduce the amount of room available for the developing baby. This restriction is called intrauterine constraint. A misaligned pelvis may also make it difficult for the baby to get into the best possible position for delivery. This can affect the mother’s ability to have a natural, non-invasive birth. Breech and posterior positions can interfere with the natural ease of labor and lead to interventions such as c-sections.

Chiropractic care during pregnancy can provide benefits for women who are pregnant. Potential benefits of chiropractic care during pregnancy include:

• Maintaining a healthier pregnancy
• Controlling symptoms of nausea and morning sickness
• Reducing the time of labor and delivery
• Reducing the pain during labor
• Relieving back, neck or joint pain
• Preventing a breech delivery
• Prevent a potential cesarean delivery

Chiropractic Care After Delivery

Not only does a woman experience several body changes during pregnancy, but she also experiences a whole different set of changes post-pregnancy. Delivery itself is a traumatic experience, especially during the pushing process for a female body and there can be residual pain long after delivery.

Often, as the baby descends through the birth canal, the bones of the pelvis can shift and misalign. This is common, especially if the baby is posterior (baby’s spine is against the mother’s spine) and the mother experiences back labor. Regardless of the length of your labor or the size of your baby, subluxations or misalignments of the spine and pelvis are common during labor, leading to back pain that is experienced after the baby is born. Chiropractic adjustments can help with realignment.

There is also a syndrome known as “new mommy syndrome”.  Taking care of an infant can put tremendous strain on the mother’s body – some of the causes are:

• Poor posture during breast or bottle feeding
• Carrying infant car seats
• Extra body weight from carrying our growing babies
• Utilizing infant carriers, which are great for mother/baby bonding but tough on our tired muscles and joints
• Lack of sleep
• Lack of exercise, especially strength training
• Lack of time to prepare healthy meals
• Lifting our older children out of the car seat, bath, stroller, etc.

Pittsburgh Chiropractic & Rehabilitation can not only help with chiropractic, but also with strengthening your body and muscles to help ease the pain and strains that motherhood comes with.

Infertility

A series of research papers and studies have shown that Chiropractic care can help with infertility issues. While no Chiropractor can claim that they can make you pregnant, it is a drug-free, inexpensive, non-invasive way to see if it can help with your fertility.

How It May Help

Your spine is a central highway of nerves, therefore, your reproductive system will not function properly if the nerves that lead to them are not functioning or are blocked in some way.

A chiropractor will identify pinched or pressed nerves and fix those subluxations (or distortions). The distortions can be caused by many things including childhood falls, illnesses, accidents, poor posture, or even stress.

Once the subluxations are minimized or eliminated, a woman’s menstrual cycle can strengthen – the action that delivers the egg through the fallopian tubes to the uterus can improve. There have also been cases of Chiropractic treatment reversing endometriosis, another cause of infertility.