Pregnancy Tips: Turning Over in Bed Without Pain

At Oona, we believe that pregnancy doesn’t have to hurt. Check out this short video to learn how you can ease the ache at night in bed.

See below for the video transcript:

Hey guys, it’s Dr. Sarah from Oona. In this video, we’re going to talk about turning over in bed [while pregnant]. Doctor Olivia is already on her side. She’s gotten into bed properly. She’s done a great job, and now she’s comfy. Inevitably at some point in the night she will need to turn over, because she’s getting a little bit uncomfortable; maybe, her hips are sore, or all the rest of it.

So, when we’re turning over in bed, I don’t want our patients to be clamping their legs together and turning as a unit – so that’s one thing we don’t want. Can you show that to us, Doctor Olivia? There you go. (Clamping our legs together while turning around) one thing that we’re not big fans of.

The other thing we’re not big fans of is legs flopping all over the place; where your top leg flops over your bottom leg (while you’re turning).

Instead, we want to keep that pelvis, pubic bone and pelvic girdle really happy. The way we do it is that top leg is going to come up, just like that, and then you’ll notice that her heel is planted on the bed. Okay? At that point, she’s going to squeeze her right butt-cheek. That’s the foot that’s on the table. She’s going to push through that (right) heel, squeeze her butt-cheek, and then use that (right) heel to push herself onto her back.

Now when you’re turning over from there, you’re going to do the opposite. Let’s say she’s turning back onto her left. So, she’s going to straighten her left leg, and then perform all the actions exactly in reverse. She’s going to keep her right knee bent, push through that, squeeze the right butt-cheek to move, and then back onto her side. Easy peasy.

Okay, show that to us one more time, Olivia. So, the right foot comes up, foot gets planted, push through the foot, squeeze the butt, and onto the back. Perfect. To turn back over, straighten the left leg, push through the heel, and then over onto her side. Great.

We’ll just do one more demo here, on how to get up from this position. So, her top arm is going to use that (upper body) strength to push herself up, and off she goes. Beautiful.

If you are experiencing pregnancy-related aches and pains, we offer prenatal and postnatal massage therapy, acupuncture, osteopathy, chiropractic and more.