Visit a Physical Therapist in Columbia, MD During Your Pregnancy

When you imagine someone going to the physical therapist, who do you picture? A person who was in a car accident, learning how to walk again? Maybe an elderly person who doesn’t have the mobility they once did? These are both very good reasons to visit the best physical therapy service in Columbia, MD, but far from the only individuals helped by a physical therapist. You see, physical therapy is not just for recovery. Physical therapy during pregnancy can be useful for remedying common discomforts like back pain or for enhancing your body’s ability to have a smoother pregnancy and birth.

 

For many women, pregnancy is a time of back pain. The number of pregnant women who experience back pain is somewhere between 50 to 70 percent, so roughly either half or more.  The reasons for back pain varies from woman to woman, but it most often can be accounted for by one of the following reasons:

 

(1)  An increase in hormones

(2)  A change in the body’s center of gravity

(3)  Added stress and other emotions

(4)  Gaining additional weight, often in the midsection

(5)  A decline in posture as the core muscles stretch

 

There’s more. A pregnant woman today looks quite different from one 50 years ago.  Due to the fact that many women are juggling both the demands of pursuing an education and getting their foot in the door of their career before starting a family, more women are having their first child after the age of thirty-five. Also, many women becoming pregnant are less physically active in their daily lives than they should be in order to be at optimal health. This decreased activity leaves an alarming number of women under-prepared for the strenuous journey of carrying and delivering a baby. If you are not working out before becoming pregnant, it’s very difficult to begin a fitness journey as your body struggles to do so much more!

 

A physical therapy treatment plan takes a comprehensive approach by working on a woman’s pain triggers, like her posture, joint alignment, muscle strength, nerve involvement, and flexibility. In general, the goals of physical therapy are to decrease pain, increase function, and provide an educational maintenance program to prevent further recurrences of pain or soreness. The manner in which physical therapy goes about doing this is with passive physical therapy to help reduce the patient's current pain to a more manageable level as well as active exercises to help reduce any pain from coming back.

 

You are taking extra care of your health right now, as you should be. That is why you should only trust your body to the best physical therapy service in Columbia, MD. Take some time today and do a little research to find this medical office. Then, book time with them and you’ll be on the road to feeling better. Pregnancy does not necessarily need to mean aches and pains!