By Dr. Thomas Sullivan
www.losethebackpain.com

The decisions of picking a name… The anticipation and excitement… Painting the new room… Clothing, diapers and family celebrations. The joy of a pregnancy is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Unfortunately however, for many women the later months of pregnancy can prove to be quite challenging. One common problem many women face is lower back pain.

Lower back pain can be a horrible interruption in day-to-day activities for a pregnant woman. More importantly, it interferes with their quality of life, not to mention the enjoyment of one of the most memorable times of their life.

The obvious cause of lower back pain is the biomechanical stress being placed on the mother by the added weight of baby. As the baby gains weight the mother is pulled forward. To compensate for this forward pull, the mother has to lean her upper body backward. This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the low back and pelvis.

The “hidden” cause
This explanation of low back pain sounds complete. It is a true explanation but is only a small part the problem. The “hidden” cause of lower back pain is actually muscle imbalances. In fact, muscle imbalances are a common cause of lower back pain in pregnancy but they are also responsible for back pain in a majority of the population.

The strength and tone of the muscular system is an extremely important factor when assessing a patient with lower back pain. Unfortunately, muscle imbalances are not addressed properly by most health practitioners. But just because they are not trained in identifying and addressing muscle imbalances, it doesn’t mean you have to continue to suffer.

But before I share with you the solution to this problem, let me first explain in more detail what a muscle imbalance is and how it causes back pain and sciatica.

How muscle imbalances work
In a nutshell, muscle imbalances work like this. Muscles work together with opposing muscles to allow movement at joints. One muscle stretches while the other shortens. Each side should be of equal tone and strength. When a pregnant woman walks, moves, bends, twists or sleeps she will typically do so in an unbalanced and awkward manner to accommodate for her increased weight. In addition, various everyday activities and positions we put our body in create imbalances in the muscle groups and during pregnancy it only worsens.

Muscle imbalances then pull the pelvis and low back out of alignment and this places uneven and excessive stress on the muscles, bones and joints.

The spine is comprised of 24 moveable bones with a shock-absorbing disc in between each bone. This spinal column rests on three large bones called the pelvic girdle.