Your hips don’t lie, expect when you’re pregnant. When you’re pregnant, if you don’t listen carefully, your hips lie to you often. And you’ll only find out when, one day, you bend over to pick the laundry and you’re struggling to get back up again!

I get messages from my prenatal yoga students about hip pain and back pain on an almost daily basis. It’s no surprise really, because if you’re struggling with one you’re likely the feel the effects on the other. But today, let’s look at hip pain specifically - what are some of the common causes of hip pain during pregnancy? And what can we do to cure, or better yet, prevent it?

Bump & Flow

Before I dive in here I want to take a moment to tell you about Bump & Flow, which is my collection of over 15hrs of prenatal yoga classes. My classes are intelligently and intentionally designed for all stages of your pregnancy to support you body and mind on your journey into motherhood. If you’re expecting, and looking for an effective, safe and affordable way to stay active during your pregnancy then I’d love for you to join me there.

PRACTICE PRENATAL YOGA WITH ME

The Primary Cause of hip pain during pregnancy: Relaxin

Pregnancy initiates the release of a hormone called Relaxin, which has an, I think, unfair, bad reputation in the prenatal world. Relaxin is amazing!! Relaxin loosens the ligaments in your body during pregnancy so that you can better accomodate your new babe and your new body. For example, relaxin allows the ribs to expand up and out and make space for your organs, and sometimes softens the ligaments in the feet - anyone gone up a shoe size? Most importantly though, relaxin loosens the ligaments in our pelvic joints, allowing our hips to expand. This expansion means more space for your growing growing baby and prepares your body for an easier natural birth.

So, before we go any further, let’s say a quiet, “Thank You” to relaxin! Without it we’d be much more uncomfortable and infinitely more likely to need medical intervention at birth. And then let’s ask ourselves, “how we can support and work with this natural process, rather than fight against it?”

The good, the bad and the dodgy hip joints

If we’re fighting the natural process of expansion in our hips and not supporting it, then relaxin can turn from helpful to extremely unhelpful very quickly! When we look at the structure of the hip (see image below) let’s focus on the Sacroiliac Joint, the Pubic Symphysis and the the Acetabulum (where the head of the femur meets the pelvis) specifically. These are the joints that are the most vulnerable during pregnancy and the ones that need the most support.

Preventing hip pain in pregnancy

First things first, maintaining a balanced practice throughout your pregnancy, or for as long as you are comfortable doing so, is going to be KEY to avoiding hip pain during your pregnancy and postpartum. That means building strength AND mobilising the hips. The majority of women have under-active glutes and a weak core and pelvic floor going into pregnancy, and these become even less active during pregnancy when we slow our roll and our normal exercise routine goes out the window. But when we don’t take the time to build strength in the muscles that support the hips as relaxin starts to take effect we’re just setting ourselves up for injuries further down the line. So you might feel tempted to skip the strengthening classes and head straight to stretchy, feel-good, hip opening classes, but you do yourself a disservice when you practice yoga in this way.

FINDING THIS BALANCE WAS THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND THE CREATION OF THE PREGNANCY YOGA PROGRAM; A 6 WEEK, BALANCED PROGRAM THAT SERVES UP STRENGTH, ENDURANCE, FLEXIBILITY, MINDFULNESS AND RESTORATIVE PRENATAL YOGA CLASSES EACH WEEK. THE PREGNANCY YOGA PROGRAM IS DESIGNED TO BE PRACTICED THROUGHOUT YOUR PREGNANCY & YOU CAN START TODAY ON A 10 DAY FREE TRIAL.

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This is important. Whilst the majority of pregnant women are experiencing hip pain and injuries due to loose, unstable hip joints, if you’re an athlete, weight-lifter or generally have very tight hips then it’s likely you’ll need to spend more time relaxing and opening the hips and pelvic floor. In this case, your practice may very well be mainly focused on hip opening poses and diaphragmatic breath (which helps to relax the core and pelvic floor).

If you aren’t sure what you need, my TOP TIP is to go and see a pelvic floor physiotherapist or osteopath early in your second trimester (when the relaxin really starts to kick in) and find out. Knowledge is power!

I’m pregnant and already struggling with hip pain, what do I do now?

GENERAL HIP PAIN

Your hip pain could be general pain that pretty much all pregnant women experience because our hips are carrying a heavier load, we’re having to sleep on our sides for hours on end each night and compress our pelvic joints and ultimately we haven’t got the balance of strength vs. flexibility right. So you can start with *addressing this imbalance and see if this makes a difference.

*it’s important that you work with a qualified prenatal yoga teacher or PT because not all exercises are suitable for pregnant woman, and simply sticking to your previous exercise or yoga routine could result in different problem. For example, without a correct understanding of core function your trainer or teacher could be unknowingly setting you up for issues like diastasis recti, difficulties with natural delivery (resulting in medical intervention - which causes more problems) or prolapse.

LOCALISED HIP PAIN

If you are experiencing severe hip pain, or pain that is localised to one area then the chances are that one or more of these joints has destabilised and slipped out of alignment. It’s not just Pelvic Girdle Pain that pregnant women are at risk of developing; all of the joints in our hips are susceptible! If you stretch any joint that is out of alignment you’ll only serve to irritate it further, and possibly slip it further out. If you strengthen a joint that is out of alignment then you’re building on a badly laid foundation, and this could cause you further problems later on.

Are you doomed? Absolutely not! Go and see your osteopath or physiotherapist and find out what exactly has gone wrong, work closely with them to fix the issue then, when you’re feeling better, you can come back to the mat with more understanding, a clear intention and you can continue your practice more mindfully.

Healthy Mama, Healthy Baby!

Hip pain can be a real pain in the ass. Pun intended ;) But it is absolutely NOT something that we just have to grin and bear during pregnancy; it doesn’t have to be just another “symptom” of pregnancy. And because relaxin can stay in the body for upto five months postpartum, this is also not a problem that will just disappear when you leave the hospital room with your bundle of joy. I want to encourage you to take control of your health NOW, no matter how far you are into your pregnancy - it’s never too late - so that you feel more in control during birth, more confident and so that you are setting yourself up in the best place possible for quicker and more efficient postnatal healing. A healthy, happy mama makes for a healthy, happy baby.