Promoting a Healthy Pregnancy Journey: The Benefits of Chiropractic Care for Expectant Mothers

Are you interested in promoting a healthy pregnancy while reducing your pregnancy-related symptoms? Seeing a chiropractor for pregnant women can help reduce back pain while promoting proper alignment and balance of the skeletal system. Chiropractic care can even help manage nausea, headaches, and swollen ankles. Let’s take a detailed look at the benefits of chiropractic care during pregnancy.

Understanding Pregnancy and the Body

Pregnancy causes many changes in a woman’s body as the baby grows, and this includes the release of additional hormones, specifically progesterone, and relaxin. These two hormones relax the ligaments and joints to aid in childbirth. However, increased joint mobility can also lead to back and hip pain as well as joint instability and misalignments.

Chiropractic care for pregnant women can help alleviate some of the discomforts a woman feels during this exciting time. Prenatal chiropractic care can help provide pain relief, enhance the function of the central nervous system, provide postural support, and help aid in the preparation for the birth of the baby.

Benefits of Chiropractic Care During Pregnancy

Seeing a prenatal chiropractor can help you have a smoother and healthier pregnancy while enhancing your feelings of well-being.

Relieving back pain and discomfort

On average, women gain between 11 and 40 pounds, depending on their starting weights. Generally, women with lower BMIs gain more weight during pregnancy than those with higher BMIs, and that weight is primarily added to the abdomen, which can increase the strain on the lower back.

Thankfully, chiropractic care can help alleviate lower back pain and discomfort by ensuring the spine is properly aligned. It can also help with the release of pent-up muscle tension and improve joint function.

Promoting proper alignment and balance

Improper posture alignment can lead to an increase in back and hip pain. Chiropractic treatments that help with pelvic alignment include chiropractic adjustments, therapeutic exercises, and massage therapy.

Managing pregnancy-related symptoms

Being pregnant can cause a myriad of symptoms, including nausea, headaches, exhaustion, and round ligament pain. Round ligament pain occurs when the ligaments surrounding the uterus stretch due to the growing baby. This can cause sharp or aching pains in the lower abdomen and groin. In rare cases, some women will also experience sciatic nerve pain, which is a pain in the buttocks and down one or both legs. Chiropractic care can help reduce these aches and pains as well as the other symptoms of pregnancy by ensuring the joints are properly aligned and by helping to alleviate muscle tension.

Enhancing nervous system function

Chiropractic care for expectant mothers can benefit both the woman and the baby. Chiropractic adjustments help ensure that the spine and pelvis are properly aligned and that the nerves are not being impinged upon. Pregnant women who receive prenatal chiropractic adjustments experience lower levels of pain, better overall health, improved digestion, and enhanced mobility because their central nervous systems are functioning properly.

Chiropractic care is also beneficial for the baby. Babies in the womb benefit from having a balanced environment in which to grow and develop. Chiropractic care can help reduce the likelihood of intrauterine constraint, which can hinder the baby’s ability to move, and help the baby achieve the optimal position when it's time for the baby to be born.

Supporting optimal fetal positioning

Supporting optimal fetal positioning is an essential aspect of prenatal care. This involves focusing on the proper alignment of the pelvis and sacrum, as well as the muscles and ligaments surrounding those structures. The goal is to create more space in the pelvic region and uterus, allowing the baby to move into the head-down position for birth. This can be achieved through various methods and approaches.

Improving overall well-being

Prenatal chiropractic care can help improve overall well-being. It does this by promoting better quality sleep to reduce daytime fatigue and by improving the function of the central nervous system and the lymphatic system. When these things are combined, the overall health of the woman and the pregnancy are increased.

Safety and Considerations

Chiropractic care for pregnant women is generally considered safe. However, if you have any preexisting conditions or concerns, you should speak with your pregnancy chiropractor and your OBGYN before receiving any chiropractic treatments. 

Tips for Incorporating Chiropractic Care into a Healthy Pregnancy Journey

Chiropractic care can be integrated with your other prenatal therapies to ensure the health and well-being of your pregnancy. Our chiropractor can help develop a prenatal chiropractic care plan that compliments your existing treatments and therapies. He does this by recommending a prenatal chiropractic care schedule that lays out the frequency of the visits, the treatments for each visit, and the length of each visit.

Receiving chiropractic care during your pregnancy can help eliminate some of the most common symptoms, including nausea, morning sickness, headaches, back and leg pain, and swelling in the hands, feet, and ankles. Our pregnancy chiropractor, Dr. Shahen Simian, can listen to your symptoms and recommend the right frequency and duration of your appointments so that you receive the maximum benefits.

To schedule an initial consultation, give us a call at (818) 688-2275.