What is Sports Massage?
Gentle & Targeted Prenatal Massage Therapy
Context
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The Work: Muscle belly vs tendon insertion & attachments
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Game Plan
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Long View vs Short View
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At Back & Body Wellness, we focus on providing the therapeutic aspects of prenatal massage. Weeks or months of side lying sleep commonly causes neck and shoulder pain while the rapid physical changes in the abdominal and pelvic regions in the 2nd and 3rd trimester can commonly cause low back and/or hip pain.
Prenatal massage is beneficial for both the body and the mind. It improves circulation of blood, lymph and hormones. Prenatal massage can also help reduce stress or anxiety associated with impending motherhood.
Our experienced staff strives to provide a therapeutic and preventative massage therapy session.
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What to Expect at Your Prenatal Massage Session
Your session begins with a consultation with your therapist to discuss your current needs and areas of discomfort.
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Our prenatal massages focus on "areas that need it the most" as opposed to general full-body prenatal massages. Typically, depending on clients' needs, most of the session is focused on specific muscles in the hip, lumbar, glute, shoulder regions. Pregnant clients tend to carry more tension on one side of the hip and low back than the other. Our therapists will focus on the side with more pain and tension in such instances. During the late stages of pregnancy, time spent on lower legs and ankles due to pregnancy related fluid retention is common.
There are physical adjustments that need to be made for pregnant women when their belly starts showing to safely and properly perform a prenatal massage. To properly begin a prenatal session, a wide variety of pillows (body pillows and extra padding pillows) are placed in a few strategic places under the pregnant woman’s body for both comfort and proper alignment. In addition to the common prenatal side lying position, special prenatal pillow propping systems for face-down massage are available on request. Learning different ways to use pillows can also be helpful for pregnant women trying to get comfortable when resting at home.
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Additionally, gentle prenatal chiropractic care is available onsite at the end of your massage treatment to help maintain optimal spinal and hip mobility and alignment.
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Benefits of Prenatal Massage
Prenatal massage can alleviate many common pregnancy complaints such as muscle cramps, spasms and myofascial pain commonly experienced in the lower back, neck, shoulders, hips and legs. Swelling of the extremities (arms, hands, legs and feet) can also be reduced.
​​Low Back Pain
Low back pain during pregnancy is caused by increased stress on the lumbar spine by an anterior shift in center of gravity. Compensatory muscle tightness and altered gait patterns also contribute, and this pain ranges from mild to severe depending on the patient’s activity level, daily activities and work duties.
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Neck & Shoulder Pain
The other most common complaint we get from expectant mothers is neck and shoulder pain due to nightly side lying sleep position. This may have existed prior to pregnancy but only exacerbated with the side sleeping position.
Sciatic Nerve Pain
Sciatic nerve pain results in low back pain with radiation into the legs. Compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve during pregnancy can be caused by hypertonicity in the gluteal muscles and deep external rotators. Some studies suggest that baby’s growth may also cause direct compression of the sciatic nerve.
Sacroiliac Joint Pain & Dysfunction
Normal hormonal changes during pregnancy leads to a loosening of ligaments in your body. This leads to traditionally very stable weight-bearing sacroiliac joints to move and shift. This increased mobility puts stress on the surrounding ligaments and muscles and may cause pain.
Pubic Symphysis Pain
Similar to sacroiliac pain, the hormone Relaxin allows the ligaments stabilizing the pubic symphysis joint to loosen and separate in order to prepare the pelvis for the delivery of your child through the birth canal. Also called Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction, this condition produces pain and limitation of mobility. It also may contribute to instability of the pelvic girdle.
Round Ligament Pain
The round ligaments connect the uterus to the abdominal wall. As the uterus grows, the round ligaments also stretch and can cause a sharp pain on either side of the abdomen or lower near the pubic bones or labia.
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