Dr Olivia Avolio, Prenatal & Postnatal Chiropractor a, provides stretches to help lower back pain (part 1). Click here for Part 2.
Hi Mamas. Today we’re going to go through a couple of stretches that you can do for mid-back pain as well as helping you to open up your chest.
A lot of moms are complaining of kind of rounded shoulders or tightness in their mid-back and upper back as well as the rounding of the shoulders. That’s often from either breastfeeding, or bottle feeding, or in being in really awkward positions while trying to kind of feed your baby and toddler. As well as, for moms and those who are pregnant who are working at a desk all day. These are a couple of things that you can do. We’re going to walk through three different ones and you can do them all in the comfort of your own home, which is awesome. So, you need a mat and some sort of pillow or bolster that you can use for this one stretch, and then the rest are equipment-free.
I’m going to walk you through the first one. You’re going to lie down on your side, you’re going to straighten the bottom leg, bring this a little bit closer, and prop up your top leg so that it’s at a 90-degree angle so that your hips are stacked one on top of the other. You’re going to bring your arm out and your other arm on top and you’re going to let your headrest down so that your neck isn’t straining to hold up your head. From this position, you’re going to bring your top arm all the way around in a big circle. Then back to the other side and then back to the starting position.
We’ll go through that again. It’s all the way around in a big circle to here and then back to the starting position. You’re going to do that about 10 times per arm and then you’re just going to switch to the other side and do the same kind of opening. That’ll just help to open up your chest.
