All of you who are now or have ever been pregnant are already well aware of the myriad aches and pains that come with the territory of a fairly rapidly expanding body. So this one will come as no surprise – things hurt. And sometimes things that you didn’t even know could hurt (or even know you had!) hurt.
One of the pains that I remember most distinctly was sacroiliac pain. What the what? Yes, sacroiliac pain. Mine manifested itself as a lot of lower back/butt/hips area pain. Not always a sharp, shooting pain like with a pinched nerve (sometimes i did feel that kind of pain but not as a rule), but an overall uncomfortable soreness in that general area. Being the self-diagnosing wonder that I am, I ruled out sciatica, which can also become an ailment during the latter months of pregnancy. For I didn’t have that tell-tale pain and/or numbness radiating down the backs of my legs that is associated with the sciatic nerve being pinched.
My pain was much more a feeling of man, something is out of whack back there, not ow, my leg hurts. So after some tooling around on the interwebz I figured it was sacroiliac pain. You have 2 sacroiliac joints – 1 on either side of your spine where it joins your pelvis in your lower back. As your pregnancy progresses and your body gets ready for delivery (read – wider and wider!), your pelvic ligaments begin to loosen as well in anticipation of the widening of the birth canal for baby to escape. This loosening of the ligaments in turn causes a concurrent “loosening” of your joints, if you will. So specifically with the sacroiliac joints, as they move out of their regular position, you may very well feel this pain. Delicious, isn’t it?
I think my pain became really noticeable toward the end of the second trimester, when my belly started pulling its weight, literally. It was weird too, because up until that point I honestly hadn’t had too much discomfort. But I started noticing more pain in my butt and hips during weight-bearing activities like standing and walking, obviously, but also during ones you never give much thought to until you’re the size of a small VW, like rolling over in bed. Getting out of bed became painful for that area too. I did ask my doctor about it during one of my visits and she agreed that I was very likely experiencing sacroiliac pain, and not sciatica. For in actuality, true sciatica is fairly rare for women who are otherwise having a generally healthy, problem-free pregnancy.
So if your burgeoning babe is becoming a pain in your pregnant butt in the most literal sense of the phrase, check it out or ask your doc. There’s a very good chance that you, too, may be enjoying some delightful misalignment of your sacroiliac joints. It gets more fun by the day, doesn’t it?
** Side note – it’s not only your pelvic ligaments and joints that loosen during pregnancy, they all do. So be careful! If you find yourself twisting your ankles or tripping more often than usual, you’re not just getting super clumsy. You’re getting ready to have a baby!