Pregnancy can lead to a range of pain, discomfort, and inconvenient symptoms. Roughly half of all women experience back pain alone at some point in their pregnancy. Although there’s no way to completely remove these symptoms, physical therapy can be a great way to reduce their intensity.

But the benefits of physical therapy go well beyond simple recovery. PT can help with everything from rehabilitation following an injury to promoting mobility, and it is often especially effective for pregnant women. Consider talking to your doctor about direct access physical therapy if you experience discomfort or other issues during your pregnancy.

Back Pain and Pregnancy

As mentioned above, back pain is among the most common symptoms experienced during pregnancy. Your body is forced to deal with a number of extreme changes throughout your pregnancy, many of which can lead to back pain. These are some of the most common causes:

• Increased weight
• Lower posture quality
• Hormonal changes
• Additional stress

Women now have their first child at an average age of 28, with pregnancy becoming more and more normal later in life. One difficulty many women experience during pregnancy is a more sedentary lifestyle, which can leave your body less prepared for the physical strains involved in being pregnant.

Looking for Physical Therapy Treatment

Although many people associate physical therapy with sports and injury recovery, it can actually have a significant impact on the things that cause back pain during pregnancy. Once you find a physical therapist, you’ll work closely with them to develop a treatment plan based on your health record and goals.

Physical therapy can help you correct several issues that may be contributing to your symptoms:

• Low muscular strength
• Poor joint alignment
• Bad posture
• Reduced flexibility

Each of these problems can affect your body in a variety of ways, and part of the PT approach involves attempting to improve your general physical health. When your body is under increased stress from pregnancy, it needs additional nutrients and exercise to maintain your normal lifestyle.

How to Choose a Physical Therapist

With so many PT options available, it can be difficult to make a decision or even know what to look for in a physical therapist and clinic. We recommend starting with these considerations along with anything else you think could be relevant:

• exercises you can do at home outside of treatment
• a certified physical therapist with experience in pregnancy PT
• an approach that allows you to adjust your exercise program as issues arise and communicate openly with your physical therapist

Pregnancy can be both physically and emotionally overwhelming, and helping your body manage this extra stress will help you live your normal life and feel comfortable throughout your pregnancy. Physical therapy is a great way to reduce your symptoms while pregnant and even help manage your recovery after delivery.

​Better PT

What are probiotics?  Probiotics are bacteria.  Yep, they’re the same type of organism responsible for pneumonia or strep throat or gonorrhea.  Fortunately, not all bacteria are bad, and, in fact, many of them are part of a healthy body.  There are actually more bacteria in your intestine than there are cells in your body.  While typically the “good” bacteria outnumber the “bad” bacteria, problems begin to occur when there are shifts in the types of bacteria usually found in the healthy body.  This type of imbalance can lead to bowel issues, weight gain, some skin conditions and may be a contributing factor to bacterial vaginosis.

​What are the most common types of probiotics?  Bifidobacterium may be helpful in treating IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), and this bacteria can be found in certain dairy products.  Another common probiotic that can be helpful for bowel symptoms is lactobacillus.  It can be found in a number of fermented foods.  Lastly, saccharomyces boulardii, a yeast, and bacillus coagulans, another bacteria, can also be helpful for digestive issues.

Why take probiotics?  A diverse gastrointestinal flora (lots of different kinds of bacteria in your digestive tract) may help reduce irritable bowel symptoms, manage weight, improve diarrhea after antibiotics, increase immune function, bolster mental and heart health, and decrease the severity of allergy symptoms.  That being said, research hasn’t been able to consistently show these benefits in all studies, and there is still a lot of research to be done.

Is there anyone who shouldn’t take probiotics?  Anyone who has a suppressed immune system or serious health conditions should probably avoid taking these supplements, and pregnant women should also use caution.  Remember, effective probiotics are live bacteria, and some bacteria can call illnesses.  More common side effects are GI distress, although serious allergic reactions or infections can sometimes occur.  Since probiotics are a nutritional supplement rather than a medication, the FDA guarantees neither the safety or efficacy of a probiotic supplement.

What is the best way to get probiotics?  The simplest way to incorporate probiotics is often to supplement, but since these supplements aren’t FDA regulated, the quality can vary a lot from one supplement to the next.  For instance, probiotics have to be both living and highly concentrated to be effective, so any process that either kills the bacteria or doesn’t adequately protect the bacteria from stomach acid isn’t going to allow proper supplementation.  For a more natural way to add probiotics, look toward fermented foods such as yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir milk, and some cheeses. 

Another option to improve gastrointestinal health is to feed the bacteria already present in the intestines.   Bacteria in the bowel thrives on fiber, so increasing daily intake of fruits and vegetables can be helpful in improving overall GI health by nurturing the good bacteria already present in the bowels.  In fact, for the roughly half of people who have “resistant” gastrointestinal flora, this may be more effective than a probiotic supplement that will end up making for some expensive poop.  Even for those whose GI tract welcomes the new probiotics, these bacteria are more likely to grow (and their hosts reap benefits) when fed a high fiber diet.

So, there you have it.  Probiotics seem to have a lot of promise for helping with a variety of health conditions, but for now, the best way to incorporate them into the diet and who is most likely to benefit from them is still up for debate.  In the meantime, it appears that an old-fashioned high fiber diet will still be a winner whether you plan to supplement or not 😊

Dr. Nick