Sciatica and Pregnancy

One side effect of a woman being pregnant is sciatic pain. Sciatic pain during pregnancy can be mild to severe. Sciatic is not a single related condition to pregnancy; however, it does affect a good number of women while pregnant. Your back will work in a new way as your body changes during your pregnancy. It can be painful if you have not prepared for it early on. To prepare and ease the pain you may talk to your doctor or a physical therapist for strengthening exercises designed for the lower back.

Back pain can be from several causes. The physical changes to your body can put extra strain on your back and the supporting muscles. Hormones (chemicals that send signals through the body) increase during pregnancy. This can have an effect on how the joints and muscles work simultaneously. All of these can add up to back pain.

Sciatic pain comes from a number of issues that involve the lower section of your spine. Back muscles and abdomen muscles help support and brace the spine. The muscles in the pelvic region, thighs and buttocks work with your spine allowing you to bend, twist, sit, or lift.

The different changes of your body will affect your posture and back during your pregnancy. Obviously, your body changes size and shape in turn making your muscles work more. You will add weight to the front of your body as your breasts and uterus grows. Stomach muscles stretch when the baby grows. Hormones will cause the pelvic muscles, joints, and ligaments to loosen. This can cause pain. In addition, the changes can make you use poor posture causing added strain on the spine. As the body reshapes, it may cause excessive pressure on the sciatic nerve as the baby shifts position and grows.

Sciatic nerve pain during pregnancy can lead to backaches and other discomforts. Most women think that the baby pushes on the nerve causing the pain. More likely the sciatic pain during the pregnancy is from a damaged disc in the spine. This causes inflammation in the surrounding tissues of the nerves. On the other hand, it can be the consequence of direct pressure on the nerve. Pregnant women are more likely to incur disc injuries than those that are not.

Sciatic pain during pregnancy may include symptoms of sensations like that of pins and needles in the leg, foot and/or lower back, burning or shooting pain in the buttock, leg, or lower back, mild to severe pain in the lower back, or the pelvic region that can radiate into the foot, and numbness in the feet or leg.

It is important that sciatica during pregnancy be monitored. First, talk to your doctor. It may be all the treatment necessary will be to add heat to the area and getting the rest your body needs. Different postures will relieve pressure on the sciatic nerve also, but anyway you look at it, before taking any medication for sciatic pregnancy pain, speak to your doctor.