The University Doctors
Osteopathic treatment eases pregnancy pains
Osteopathic physicians are trained to understand the interaction between the structure and the function of the human body. An important part of their training is osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT), techniques during which osteopathic physicians use their hands to move a patient’s muscles and joints through stretching, gentle pressure and resistance to assist healing or prevent illness. OMT is often used to treat muscle and joint pain. If a nerve, muscle or joint is subject to abnormal pressure or strain, it will eventually cause a pain response. Many medications can be prescribed to alleviate the pain or discomfort, but OMT can often decrease or eliminate pain by adjusting the surrounding musculoskeletal structures to restore normal pressure to the affected nerve, muscle or joint.
This can be particularly important for pregnant women because very few medications are considered safe for the unborn baby during pregnancy. With OMT, osteopathic physicians may relieve the pain or discomfort of pregnancy without the use of any medications at all.
As young girls begin to mature, their bodies undergo several physiological changes. Following the beginning of menstruation, the pelvis widens, the gluteal muscles stretch and thighs rotate slightly inward, all of which help to prepare the body for the stress that it will encounter should a pregnancy occur.
Weight gain is one of the primary sources of pain and discomfort during pregnancy. Although each individual is different, women who begin pregnancy at a normal weight can expect to gain 20 to 30 pounds during the nine months of pregnancy. Although a woman’s body has spent years changing in preparation for pregnancy and the amount of weight gained is within the expected range, it can still place significant stress on the woman’s body, leading to a pain response. Typically the pain related to weight gain occurs in the lower back.
The additional weight and the growth of the fetus shifts the body’s center of gravity forward, placing more stress on the muscles and ligaments of the lower back to support this weight.
This shift can cause the spine to curve beyond its normal front to back shape, causing discomfort. At the same time, the gain and shift in body weight can alter the pregnant woman’s normal gait when walking, resulting in some residual aches and pains in the lower back and hips.
Although many of the aches and pains of pregnancy can be treated with over-the-counter products like acetaminophen, OMT provides a way to treat these aches and pains without any medication, eliminating all of the risks associated with taking medicines during pregnancy. Rather than taking pills to counter the body’s pain response, OMT applies stretching, pressure and resistance to the muscles, bones and ligaments to allow the body to respond normally and effectively to the strains that are causing pain.
Originally Published in The University Doctors' MedicaLink - 2/08
links marked with this symbol open in a new window