I found myself on my acupuncturist’s table for the first time today in nearly 3 months. My beautiful 4 month old daughter was passed out on the floor while I got a treatment and as soon as I hit the table, I found myself taking a deep breath and thinking “what took me so long.” As a yoga teacher, and advocate to all my mamas of self care postpartum, here I was ignoring my number one rule, “taking care of you is also taking care of baby.” My body needed this time to relax, to unplug and also to heal. I had been neglecting my needs, which was surprising to me, given that I am constantly inviting others to be tuned into their own.
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How did I get here?

​I taught prenatal yoga for 9 years before becoming pregnant myself. I knew low back pain was a major part of pregnancy for most people. I knew anatomically why this was and I even knew ways to help prevent it. Let me tell you, I was still not prepared for the achy low back that showed up for me toward the end of my 2nd trimester and into my 3rd (and oh by the way, continued postpartum!).
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Low back pain can be triggered by a myriad of things in pregnancy, one of the most common causes is the added load in the front of the body, courtesy of baby combined with the loss of abdominal of support (also thanks to baby) which causes the low back to have to work much harder and also get more exaggerated in its curvature. Not to mention all the bad postural habits we get into as our posture shifts that can further aggravate this issue.