Pregnancy & Birth
A Pain in the back
Early in my first pregnancy, while still in the grips of morning sickness, I began to feel aches in my lower back. I first put this down to DIY (we’d recently moved house) or the time I was spending bent over the loo, but I mentioned it to my midwife at a routine check-up and she referred me to the hospital physiotherapist. At about 18 weeks pregnant, I was diagnosed with pelvic girdle pain (PGP). I was given a list of exercises to help ease the pain, a support belt to wear and a lot of advice about activities to avoid (including certain types of exercise, moving and lifting) and ways to relieve the pain.
I consulted with my health and safety representative at work, but was able to continue with some modifications to my role (as a scientist I had to be careful of some of the heavier equipment and make more use of the chairs and stools in the lab). At home, the DIY proved tricky and I needed a lot more rest; I felt pretty useless and quite frustrated that I couldn’t get things done, but I did take up knitting and discovered a very enjoyable new pastime!
My son was born by emergency caesarean section (not linked to the PGP) in January 2009, and by the time I was up and about after that, the symptoms of PGP had gone. However, when I fell pregnant again in November 2010, the pain quickly returned. I felt some initial twinges around my coccyx at about 5 weeks pregnant and, by my first appointment with the midwife, I needed referral to the physiotherapist. She diagnosed me with PGP again (if you’ve suffered with it once, you are more likely to get it in subsequent pregnancies) and told me to take it easy. Unfortunately, this time around I had a toddler to look after so resting opportunities were limited. Walks with the buggy gradually got harder and had to be dramatically reduced, and even car trips became harder as I struggled to lift my son in and out of the car. Nappy changes were switched to a mat on the floor to avoid the stairs and having to lift him onto the change table. I had to come up with more sedentary activities to keep him entertained and rely a lot on the generosity of friends and family for help. The hardest thing I found was the guilt; I didn’t want my son to miss out on anything or feel pushed aside by his new sibling before he’d even been born. I just told him that mummy had a poorly back and couldn’t do as much for the time being.
PGP is very hard to cope with and, with no outwardly visible symptoms, I also worried that people thought I was over-exaggerating the pain. This probably led to me trying to do too much, which would then hurt even more and might have worsened my condition in the long run. Often, I would feel ok in the mornings and actually be able to lift heavy things, walk fair distances and do things I was supposed to be avoiding. I knew that I would suffer later that day though; at about 20 weeks pregnant I pushed my son in the pushchair to the library and back (only about ½ mile to a mile) and spent the next two days barely able to move. Having to hold back when there was so much I wanted to do was terribly hard, but the pain was always there to some extent as a reminder to take it easy, and the threat of more pain, coupled with the knowledge that I would be even more incapacitated if I did stretch myself, served to reign in my activities.
"PGP is very hard to cope with and, with no outwardly visible symptoms, I also worried that people thought I was over-exaggerating the pain"
Laura Edwards, from the Chester branck shares her battle with the discomfort that Pelvic Girdle Pain can bring during and after pregnancy.