A large percentage of women during pregnancy experience back pain to some degree. I have written this article to explain why. I believe that poor posture is the biggest reason as to why women develop back pain during pregnancy.

Poor posture is a contributing factor towards this. While pregnant an expanding uterus causes a bulging belly that causes pregnant women to develop changes to the centre of gravity of their body. This causes you to have a sway back (a banana shaped body). This is caused by stretching and weakening the abdominal muscles and contraction / shortening of the lower back muscles.

This posture causes the lower back muscles to become very tight / strong and this causes the lower back muscles to over activate. By this I mean that the lower back muscles work when other muscles should be doing the work and this causes back pain. People sometimes mistake the lower back for being weak when in actual fact it is just been overloaded with additional pressures that it should not be taking.

To stop this from happening, improve your general posture. Stand up tall as if there is a piece of string attached to your head, pulling you up like a puppet. Roll your shoulders back and tilt your pelvis by tucking your bum under your spine (like pink panther) by squeezing your bum and bracing your abdominal muscles.

By performing a basic lower back stretch you can help to reduce lower back pain. To perform this kneel down sitting in to the heels, lean forward tucking the chin into the chest and reach forward with the arms on to the floor in front of you. Feel the stretch and hold for 20 seconds. Return to start position and repeat.

Pelvic tilts are very good for increasing abdominal strength which will also decrease lower back pain. To perform get down on all fours, keeping your elbows slightly bent and back flat. Contract your abdominal muscles and rotate your pelvis so your tailbone is pointing towards the floor. Hold this for a count of ten and then relax. Repeat 10 times. Pelvic tilts can also be done lying down on your back until the end of the first trimester.

Pregnant women waddle slightly when they walk this is due to the release of a hormone called relaxin which causes the pelvis and ligaments to soften to allow the baby out of the pelvis in preparation for childbirth.

This waddle helps contribute to poor posture which makes it even more important to concentrate on keeping good posture and practice the exercises outlined above.