Preggie Pals
Sleep During Pregnancy: Finding Comfort with a Growing Belly

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Please be advised, this transcription was performed from a company independent of New Mommy Media, LLC. As such, translation was required which may alter the accuracy of the transcription.

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NICOLE TROMBLEY: With all the physical changes a body goes through, sleeping can become increasingly difficult as pregnancy advances. It can be hard to find a comfortable position to sleep in but don’t lose hope. There are ways to support and relax that tired pregnant body. I’m Nicole Trombley, a pregnancy massage therapist and today we are talking about sleep comfort in pregnancy. This is Preggie Pals.

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STEPHANIE GLOVER: Welcome to Preggie Pals, broadcasting from the birth education center of San Diego. Preggie Pals is your online on-the-go-support group for expecting parents and those hoping to become pregnant. I’m your host Stephanie Glover. Thank you to all of our loyal listeners who’ve joined the Preggie Pals club.

Our members get special episodes plus special giveaways and discounts. See our website for more information. Another way for you to stay connected is by downloading our free Preggie Pals app available in the Android, iTunes and Windows market places. I’ll hand it over to Samantha, our producer, who is going to give us some information about our virtual panelist program.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Thanks Stephanie. So if you don’t live in San Diego but you want to still be a part of our discussion here at Preggie Pals, head over to Facebook and like our New Mommy Media and Preggie Pals Facebook page and follow us on Instagram using #preggipals. We’ll post questions before our show starts and we’d love for you to comment so we can incorporate your thoughts into our show. For more information head to our website and go to the community section www.preggiepals.com .

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Thanks. So we’re going to go ahead and just go around to the different panelist that we have joining us today and introduce ourselves. I’ll start. My name is Stephanie Glover. I’m 32 years old. I’m the new host of Preggie Pals and I’m also…

SUNNY GAULT: Yohoo. Yehey!

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And I’m also a stay at home mom to my two girls. Gretchen is almost 3 and Lydia is 10 months old. I had two hospital births one is caesarean and the other a VBAC.

ANNIE LAIRD: My name is Annie Laird. I’m 36 years old. I’m a labor doula and I was the former host of Preggie Pals but today I’m just a panelist. I’ve three little girls, a 9 year old, a 2 year old and an 8 month old. And the first one was a hospital birth. The second was a home birth turned hospital transfer and then the third was a home birth.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: I am Samantha. I’m the producer of Preggie Pals. I’m 22 years old. I’m currently a stay at home mom but looking for full time employment. I have a 20 month old named Olivia. She was an unplanned caesarean and hoping for a VBAC sometime in the future.

SUNNY GAULT: And I am Sunny. I’m the owner of New Mommy Media which produces Preggie Pals, Twin Talks, Parent Savers and The Boob Group. One of these days I’m going to forget a show. I’m running it through my head, we’re going to have so many at some point it’s going to be like visit our website for more information.

Anyway so I’m a mommy to a four kids, four children currently under the age of four. My oldest is 4 his name is Sayer, my middle guy is Urban he is age two and then I have identical twin girls who are seven months old. So when it comes to sleeping while I was pregnant I didn’t get that much of it especially with the twins.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: You are an expert.

SUNNY GAULT: There you are. The harder it is.

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ANNIE LAIRD: Hi Preggie Pals. We have a question from one of our listeners for our experts. Susie in Dahlgren writes “I’m seeing a chiropractor regularly but are there any benefits to bringing my new baby to see him?”

DR. TYSON TORRES: Hey Susie this is Dr. Tyson Torres I’m a paediatric and family chiropractor at Elevation Family Chiropractic in Charleston and you ask about the benefits of your newborns seeing chiropractor and there absolutely are benefits. So to know what are your newborn needs to chiropractic adjustment or not a paediatric chiropractor we use neuroscans or neurological scans to look at the function of the child and see if the brain and the body are connected appropriately and if they’re not the chiropractor can use very gentle and safe adjustments in order to restore that communication.

By restoring proper communication between the brain and the body, the child is able to perceive and adapt to the environment appropriately. I hope that answers your question. Thanks a lot.

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STEPHANIE GLOVER: So today we are going to be discussing ways to make sleeping more comfortable in pregnancy. Joining here in the studio is Nicole Trombley. Nicole is a certified massage therapist and restorative exercise specialist specializing in massage for pregnancy and postpartum. Welcome to Preggie Pals Nicole it’s great to have you.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yehey! Thanks for having me here.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Awesome. So sleep is always such a big component of pregnancy. In your experience how common is it for pregnant women to have difficulty sleeping?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Well if you talk with pregnant women it is extremely common. I think studies say that depending on what you what study you look at anywhere between 75 and 95% of women report sleep disturbances by the end of their third trimester.

ANNIE LAIRD: Who are those 5%? That’s what I want to know.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: They’re just in denial.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Liars. So pretty darn common.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah pretty darn common.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And how about Samantha did you have any difficulty sleeping in your pregnancy?

SAMANTHA EKLUND: You know it wasn’t so bad in the beginning like I’m sure most people have the same complaint like in the beginning it wasn’t bad that you can still sleep on your stomach it was not a problem and then when I got big, it was a big problem because we were sleeping on a full size bed. So it’s me and her dad and like me is being like one and a half people and so that was definitely a struggle.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Samantha brings up a good point about the growing bellies, so what is it about pregnant body that can impact sleep?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: You know it’s a whole range of things so depending on the women and her pregnancy it can be anything from the uterus pressing on the bladders, of course pregnant women have to get up to pee many more times on the night than they use to getting up. But women also experience you know once they’re far enough long in their pregnancy they some women really experience a fetal movement a lot at night so they may have a probably wonderful adorable little one who is just kicking around but submissively really disruptive to mom.

Sometimes it’s fun but sometimes it’s really disruptive to our sleep. Some women will get heart burn at night while they are trying to sleep just because we are on the horizontal position they really feel it pushing up a lot more. Heart burn can really get on their way. A lot of women get anxiety in their pregnancy and their normal ways in dealing with anxiety aren’t available to them.

Whether be it a glass of wine or medication or jogging. Things change so a lot of times people are dealing with some emotional changes at night and during their pregnancy they experience the dark of night but you know other changes that happen just because of the way the shape of the abdomen changes it can change the breathing when you’re lying horizontal so there’s often times an increase in snoring in pregnancy and there’s a lot of attention now being given to an increase in sleep apnea in pregnancy. I’d actually been looking to find connections between on-set of preeclampsia and snoring and sleep apnea.

ANNIE LAIRD: Oh interesting.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: That was interesting.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: And I don’t know I don’t know the conclusions on that but then one of the other big things like it’s in a way of pregnant women having a comfortable night sleep is comfort and they could be because of their body shape, force to sleep in positions they’re not use to sleeping in which feels really awkward to them and they could be experiencing a lot of pain.

And this could be could be pain that they experience all the time during the day and could be just stuff that they could feel at night. And often times it’s things like low back pain. You hear that classic low back pain that women experience in pregnancy but it can also be rib pain, carpal tunnel syndrome. Their limbs are falling asleep, leg cramps like all of these sorts of discomforts happening at night. It’s a long list of stuff that really.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: So much going on their body.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And I mean are there sleep positions to avoid in pregnancy?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: This is complicated. This is really complicated and it’s a little bit controversial and there’s been studies out lately that are even more controversial. Yeah the position we sleep in particularly while we’re pregnant has physiological implications and the largest implications it had is it influences our blood dynamics.

So when you’re laying flat on your back and you’ve got a very pregnant belly, there is a chance not a 100% guarantee for all woman but there’s a chance that that really pregnant uterus it’s heavy is going to weight down on your major blood vessels. So like you’re [inaudible] and your vino cava like these big ones and that is going to minimize your blood flow to your back to your heart a little bit and it can end up with you feeling dizzy and passing out.

So in general the recommendation is not to sleep on your back. That is it’s actually hard to give that as a universal precaution because some recent studies have been showing that for some women laying on their back they actually have increase blood flow. Yeah it’s really complicated. I think it has a lot more to do but the studies haven’t shown it yet with baby’s position in the uterus and that that’s going to have more of an impact.

But they’re not they’re not that specific in the studies. They’re not looking at that. But the other big restriction that pregnant women hear a lot is that they’re told to sleep just on their left side.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: And it’s…

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Why is that?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Well the assumption the assumption is that there are a lot of data supporting this assumption that laying on your left side it is going to interfere less with the blood flow…

ANNIE LAIRD: To the baby right?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Well back to mom’s heart and then eventually to the baby.

ANNIE LAIRD: Okay.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: What we’re finding out though is that again that’s not universal. It’s some women are experiencing that and it’s used to be that this was a recommendation that was given for women with really high risk pregnancies. So like women who had really bad high blood pressure, women with they’re really worried about their baby’s size that they had really small babies and they weren’t really sure what was going on and so they were really concerned about the blood flow. And somehow the past 20 years because of Dr. Google and all of the sorts of information resources available to us as moms…

ANNIE LAIRD: Alarmist books. Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah we won’t mention any titles right?

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: There’s definitely in the alarmist books.

ANNIE LAIRD: It’s hard to toss and turn at night if you’re told not to toss and turn you know . . .

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: You’re stuck there on your left side.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: No and . . .

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: And part of the complication with that is that as humans we meant to roll around in bed right just by ourselves or with other people but you’re meant to roll around and you know we know this just from you know caring for people who are bed ridden and it’s like we need them, we need to move them around so they don’t get bed sores and it’s like we know this, we’re supposed to move around on our sleep. It’s better for full body circulation.

It’s better for muscles that I’ve you force yourself on one side all the time you end up with a lot of discomforts. So you know the left side lying rule you know my you know what I really you know I’m it’s not within my scope of practice to make a recommendation, I’m a massage therapist, to my clients at all but what I really encourage them to do is to really talk with their care provider around about it because it really used to be a recommendation that was for this really complicated pregnancies and it’s really between the woman and her care provider to know everything about her pregnancy and not Dr. Google. Right.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: And that’s really a safer…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Thanks. So…

SAMANTHA EKLUND: And I’ve seen too in reading about you know what is that cut off point for not laying on your back because sometimes they say well it’s later maybe midway through pregnancy or but then I’ve also heard sometimes the body just give queues when it’s no longer appropriate.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: If you are feeling faint maybe…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Or…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Having blood pressure issues or something.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: No and exactly the experts ultimately always say oh well and if you do feel faint just roll over and it resolves immediately. So it’s not it’s not that big of a…

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Big of a concern.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Okay. Now there are a lot of stomach sleepers.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And how do you reconcile that in pregnancy? Is it safe? Is it safe for any point in pregnancy or is it just overall not recommended?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: You know well that’s another one again that I’d refer you know with the safety question…

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Right.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Referred back to a care provider but I will say that there are alternatives. Definitely a group of women that I am not a stomach sleeper but I have the most sympathy for because it’s the hardest one to accommodate right? If you’re so use to sleeping on your stomach and you just…

ANNIE LAIRD: I mean at least if you’re a back sleeper you can put a wedge…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Correct.

ANNIE LAIRD: Or a pillow so you’re not…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: Completely on your back but kind of on your side sort of…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

ANNIE LAIRD: You know. But man yeah.

SUNNY GAULT: I’m a stomach sleeper.

ANNIE LAIRD: Well what did you do?

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah how did you handle that?

SUNNY GAULT: And I just couldn’t do it when I was pregnant and even…

ANNIE LAIRD: I mean did you not do it during even the first trimester? Because you didn’t even know…

SUNNY GAULT: I know I did it for as long as I could.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

SUNNY GAULT: I really did. I don’t know if that was bad for the baby or not but that’s just how I sleep much better. You know my issue now, I’m not pregnant obviously anymore but my boobs fill up really easily at night and that’s uncomfortable for me. So I’ve really had to adjust so that I can sleep on other positions and not make it be so awkward for me. I do a lot of side lying now especially if you got it like if your side nurse staying in bed or something like that when you fall asleep that way your body kind of gets used to that. But yeah I love sleeping on my tummy.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Love it.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And what are some of the adaptations for…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: One of the things I coach stomach sleepers to play around with don’t think it works for every women but definitely works for some women is to think about why you are a stomach sleeper? So when you sleeping on your stomach, one of the things that makes it such a like a satisfactory experience is that you’re getting pressure and tactile stimulation on your abdomen and in on your chest right? It’s like tactile. You’re getting like a physiological response from that.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: It’s like a hug.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: It is.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: It’s like someone hugging you.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: It totally is. And that’s sending a signal to your brain that okay I’m safe. It’s time to sleep right? So you know how do you how can you then recreate that on your side like you know for some women it’s helpful. They’ll be hugging like a hard pillow as long as you’ve got like temperature control on it on such a hot room but hugging something and like putting firm things against you while you’re lying on your side and kind try to recreate some of that tactile stimulation that’s going to give that.

It works for some women and then another thing that you can try is not lying perpendicular to the bed on your side but rolling over kind of on a three quarters right. So you’re going to need like a body pillow or something that you can put between your legs and swing your arm over.

You’re kind of your halfway on your belly halfway on your side but you’re not putting your body weight fully on top of your belly and it’s something that you can manage. I don’t know if that’s going to be perfect for neck pain and back pain but it’s definitely if you can get a good night sleep there’s so much value to that for your mental health and physical wellbeing that it’s definitely worth trying.

SUNNY GAULT: That’s tough though if you’re rolling around a lot if you guys roll around a lot in your sleep but if you’re moving like I remember they told me that too especially when I was pregnant with the twins you know not to lay just on my back. You know they really wanted me to be kind of on my side and I am like but between my husband flipping and flopping in his sleep which I swear the guy like gets airborne when he does that between that and just my own personal you know comfort yeah I mean I’d we’re moving around quite a bit you know.

ANNIE LAIRD: Easier said than done.

SUNNY GAULT: It is.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Yeah and I remember being because I was a before my first I was a back sleeper and I got so in my head that I wasn’t supposed to be on my back and I almost felt that - that interrupted my sleep. I would you know roll on to my back and be woken up very alarmed.

ANNIE LAIRD: You did evaluate yourself.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: I’m kind of guilty that I allowed myself to be comfortable in that position. Annie how about you did you what kind of sleeper were you? Did you have to make modifications?

ANNIE LAIRD: You know no I was at always on my left side but…

SAMANTHA EKLUND: That’s convenient.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. Well left side right side I’m a side sleeper. You know for me it was just disturbed sleep was especially my first pregnancy where it annoyed me like I should be able I have a right to sleep through the night. You know and that I knew quickly and then…

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And then it went away.

ANNIE LAIRD: Exactly.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: And then you’re a mom.

ANNIE LAIRD: And then I was a mom until she started more sleeping through the nigh more consistently which took a while but you know Nicole you’ve mentioned that the bladder waking up that was my thing.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: And then you know what I just kind of took the view point of this is with my second baby not my first with my second baby you know what you know when I have this baby I’m going to be getting up a lot of times in the middle of the night so this is just mother nature’s way of getting you ready to not sleep 8 hours in a row. And nobody really I don’t think sleep 8 hrs in a row anyways like there’s awakening that we all have in the middle of the night which is I remember them.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right. Now we are definitely going through different levels of sleep that you know some are deep or we can’t even move and then we move more until like the dream the dream stage were [inaudible] more light sleeper we . . .

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Great so when we come back we discuss recommendations for physicians that will help with sleep. We’ll be right back.

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STEPHANIE GLOVER: So welcome back. Today on Preggie Pals we’re discussing comfortable and beneficial sleep positions for pregnant women. Certified massage therapist Nicole Trombley is our expert. So which sleep positions were recommended for pregnant women? I know we talked about some of the limitations but how can we really get comfortable in pregnancy?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Well the key is really complicated. It’s a lot of pillows and it’s easy for you once you get them to bed it’s really hard for everybody else. It really is. You know the easiest position really is going to be the side lying position and it’s easiest because we can prop you know you can get prop up with lots of pillows to help maintain it but it’s kind of a the position you can be and you can get the best alignment for your neck and your spine and your back and kind of hopefully get you back a little bit more to a neutral position and then let your muscles re-sore themselves and…

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And I know we can’t see because we’re just over the radio but could you explain where would we place those pillows?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: All over the place. All over the place. And…

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Build a fort.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah seriously so if we start at your head right. So we do the whole body. So we start at your head. If you’re sleeping on your side and you’re not a regular side sleeper, when you sleep at your side that’s the time when you need a slightly thicker pillow for your neck right?

So if you got the really flat dead pillows you sometimes want just a couple two of those flat dead pillows or you want a slightly thicker pillow and some experts recommend that your you want your neck to be a perfect continuation of your spines as in one straight line so if you’d look at yourself your facing yourself you would see your nose in line with your naval they say and hopefully your belly button hasn’t gone off on some strange direction.

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: So you got those you see you got those your neck really supported and then often times for pregnant women we want to tuck something under her belly and this isn’t not every women wants this and sometimes baby’s in the position where they’re just going to reject your pillow of if you’ve got or if your carrying multiples this might be just too much support under your belly but putting on a belly a belly pillow and often just a little throw pillow or something or rolled up towel often times that will move your uterus back up towards the midline on your body.

When you’re just laying there on your side your uterus drops down towards your bed right because babies like flop around it just drops down. So if you’ve put something under it it’s going to move it back up to the midline of the body. That’s going to help takes some pressure off your uterine ligament. Some women are having some ligament pain and it’s also going to take pressure off of your little back.

And so this is really a nice one for women. And the next thing you want to do is you want to prop your legs up right? So legs we can some women find it really helpful to put pillows between their knees and then other women need a little more support than that right? So instead of one pillow between your knees, we really need about three pillows and these are the women who tend to be experiencing sciatica in pregnancy or [inaudible] pain so the sacroiliac joint which is kind of that low back really sharp pain that some women experience.

And the more support hey can put under their legs, serious like 3 thick pillows like really thick, that’s really going to help with their leg in the position that’s not going to aggravate that low back. So that becomes a really critical one and then another great pillow for women is when you’re lying on your side you’ll get your neck supported your belly supported your legs supported we’re talking what is that like 5-6 pillows already is again another little something and it could be a teddy bear I don’t know like but another pillow to hug.

And sometimes that’s going to actually take the weight of your arm and put it into the pillow and it’s not dangling from your neck anymore. So it’s going to take a little bit of strain off of women’s neck. That’s kind of a recommendation of like a general setup of pillows that . . .

STEPHANIE GLOVER: That’s great well and you see those full body pillows or you see the…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Specific pregnancy pillows that are like J shape or like a C shape, are those sufficient if you don’t have 20 extra pillows in your house?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: They can be, they can be. They really work for some women. Some women find that those pillows collapse too quickly like they have too much give they’re actually too soft. Right? And a lot of women actually fold them in half and actually use them as a double pillow to put between their legs because they need something that’s going to support them all night for a couple of hours and not compressed. So a lot of women it’s a great pillow for them. Other women they really they do what they can with it.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Right.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: They modify it. But you know the other thing people can do is they can make their own pillows because your needs are going to change throughout the pregnancy. As you get bigger you may develop discomforts or new ones and may disappear.

Sometimes we just encourage women to take like a giant king size pillow and shove towels and small pillows from around the house. This giant king size pillow that’s now full and it’s now like this giant bolster for you or like a rolled up sleeping bag. These are great pillows to support your legs as you’re lying in bed. Instead of you know and if that’s a great alternative to a hundred dollar pillow.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Right. And I’ve even heard you know because I so many of us get those nursing pillows that are you know on small scale but you can use those too.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Absolutely.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And like the prenatal phase…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Absolutely.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Supporting your belly or between your legs. So…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Absolutely.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Great.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Those are great tips. And so we touch on sciatica but I know a lot of pregnant women get leg cramps and are there any positions or anything that can help with that?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yes there is. You know in terms of pillows and sleeping and the leg cramps. One other things you can we talk to some women is too make sure that your entire leg from hip to toes is fully supported on pillows. Sometimes we just put pillows between our thighs and then your lower leg and your foot is dangling and that can make it on that part of your leg a little more vulnerable to a wider range of movements while you’re sleeping and that you know you may put yourself more at risk for like one of those sudden leg cramps.

But with leg cramps the best thing to do is preventive. Like the leg cramps are happening because of what’s happening on your body all day long not just at night. So the recommendations for stretching and talking to your doctor about electrolytes are actually really key and the stretching is like . . .

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Did anyone experience leg cramps in pregnancy at night?

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes. Oh my gosh.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Did anything help that you notice or…

ANNIE LAIRD: Not that it will I mean I guess I just kind of just dealt with it as they came like I would wake up in the middle of the night and I’m like okay like I got to stretch this outside like grab my toe and stretch out and at that point I was like alright I’m going back to sleep. And then during the day it never really crossed my mind like hmmm can I do something to prevent that. I like just kind of dealt with it but now on hindsight like maybe if I drink a Gatorade or maybe if I had a banana before I went to sleep like maybe that would help.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Yeah.

SUNNY GAULT: So are these Charlie horses is that what we are talking about?

ANNIE LAIRD: Yeah. I think so.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Yeah.

SUNNY GAULT: When we say leg cramps? Okay I did I had some of those too I don’t know. Yeah I mean more of my pain was more like I felt more like up near the hip or something…

ANNIE LAIRD: Yes that too.

SUNNY GAULT: like trying to lift up my leg to put it in pants or something. You know what I mean that that’s when I really most of mine.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah. I started to notice when I got bigger and funnily enough I notice it now post pregnancy but I didn’t notice it pre pregnancy if I lay on my side for too long whatever hip is down at the mattress if I’ve been in that position too long it hurts really bad I’m like I need to move this second and then I rolled over and it kind of would the pain would just dissipate. And it started in pregnancy and continues now even with I don’t have a big old baby on my belly.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: In what position are your legs bent while doing that?

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Probably.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: My best guess…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Sometimes it’s about your mattress but sometimes it’s about what part of your pelvis is actually hitting the mattress right so sometimes you can straighten your legs out play with just trying to find tuck your tail bone un-tuck your tail bone and try to if you can get a different part of your pelvis hitting the mattress so that it’s taking the weight right. And then the other thing you could do is get like a little piece of foam and put under hips.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Oh.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Which is like totally high maintenance. It’s like all this pillow stuff is so high maintenance right. It totally is but you know and particularly if you got a little one in bed with you.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Yeah that’s a great point she’s still with me so that should be . . .

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Yeah.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Well and yeah the pillow certainly was high maintenance and not welcome to by my husband.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: Right.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Because I had one of those pregnancy pillows.

SUNNY GAULT: Yeah.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: It was like a third person on the bed and he’s a coddler so it was like this barrier so he couldn’t like get to me.

WOMAN: Get this out of here.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: He was very yeah very happy when I rehomed it.

SUNNY GAULT: What we need to know if anything about the type of mattresses we’re using, how does that factor into this because I know and not that we all going to run out and buy a new mattress but like we’ve got a pillow top mattress which we like really soft and fluffy and happy but I know you know some other people like really hard mattresses. Does that weight into this at all like what the body needs during pregnancy?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: It does and I would say there’s not a universal answer to it there’s or even a general answer to it. That’s really going to depend on most everyone’s experiences. I have a lot of clients who get really upset that they spend a lot of money on a mattress before they got pregnant because their needs change. Then hopefully some of them can just you know buy a less expensive pillow top to change the furnace of the bed to whichever direction they need to go in but I don’t have a…

SUNNY GAULT: Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: I don’t have a universal answer.

SUNNY GAULT: Maybe that’s why we need to get the ones with the numbers

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Right.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Oh yeah.

SUNNY GAULT: So we could just adjust it.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: There you go.

ANNIE LAIRD: Really good idea.

SAMANTHA EKLUND: There’s a pregnancy set right. All the pillows come out of it.

SUNNY GAULT: Right. Maybe we need to partner with a company and create the pregnancy set.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: If trying new positions isn’t helping with discomfort what else can a woman try? Are there certain stretches, exercises, massage? What are the options for woman?

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Well depending on how severe the discomfort is like if it’s you know obviously if it’s interfering with your daily activities you definitely want to check out with your care provider and a physical therapy is a fantastic option for people because the changes that are happening in pregnancy happen can happen pretty fast for some people’s bodies and particularly if you’re carrying multiples and physical therapy can really help you get the balance of muscle strength back where you need it like which muscles need to be strong.

They can help figure that out. Yeah sometimes acupuncture, chiropractic massage can all help bring your body back to neutral and get some of those muscles to let go and kind of resolve some of the discomfort a little bit. My advice with women to women is often we need to use-it isn’t just for pregnant women we need to use the discomfort we feel at night in bed kind of as information like that even if this you know low back pain only fee at night something is going on and what is it telling me?

What is it telling me about imbalances that are happening in my body and you know and I’ll all get geeky on myself about hips strength but it’s you know does that mean my lateral hips are not strong. The average woman is not going to be asking that specific question but you can definitely kind of get the sense of there’s something going on and I need to seek some you know outside resources whether it’s Dr.Google or if it’s a massage therapist or another care provider to kind of give her some sense but it of what is going on and help her think big picture about hat because sometimes a lot of the stuff that’s happening on pregnancy is pelvic related and it’s definitely not something we want to play with because it can affect and play with it in terms of ignore, I guess not play with we want to play with, because it can affect fetal positioning.

It can affect your pelvic mobility and how much access you have to different movements on your pelvis going into delivery. It can affect your pelvic floor health and postpartum recovery and you know your life long relationships with your pelvis in terms of you know continents and all of these issues. It really is something to pay attention to so I definitely encouraged women to kind of use that as like what is this telling me, what is going on and how can I find out.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: And with massage being an option is massage well and physical therapy are those options throughout pregnancy or are you supposed to stop…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Absolutely.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Or so massage…

NICOLE TROMBLEY: If physical therapy, physical therapy absolutely.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Okay. Yeah.

NICOLE TROMBLEY: Massage therapy if most massage providers who are not don’t hold certification in prenatal massage will not perform massage on first trimester moms or anyone who has a high risk. That is not meaning that is not safe in first trimester that’s their personal liability exclusion but it’s absolutely you know if you see a trained provider you can absolutely get massage in your first trimester.

STEPHANIE GLOVER: Oh great thank you Nicole for joining us today. For more information about Nicole as well as information about any of our panelists visit the episode page on our website. This conversation continues for members of our Preggie Pals club. After the show Nicole is going to talk about how pregnancy discomfort affects babies positioning. To join our club visit our website www.preggiepals.com

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JENNIFER DURBIN: Hi I’m Jennifer Durbin the author of Pregnancy Tips for the Clueless Chick and the mother of two wonderful little boys. I would love to give you all of the insights and info you need to find the right paediatrician. Finding a paediatrician for your little one before he or she is born is an important and daunting task if you don’t know where to start or what to ask. Like many of your pregnancy question you can benefit from asking for recommendation from friends, co-workers or neighbours.

You may also find that your OB or midwife has a list of recommended paediatrician but first get a list of paediatrician affiliated with the hospital or birth center where you plan to deliver. Simply check their website or give them a quick call. It’s important that you selected a paediatrician prior to delivery because most doctors would like to see the baby for their first check up soon after you discharged from the hospital and you don’t want to be scrambling to find a paediatrician 24 hours after you’d delivered.

When you’re looking for a doctor for your baby, keep in mind that if she’s not affiliated with the hospital which you’re delivering she will not be able to admit the baby to that hospital should complications arise. It’s beneficial to meet with 2 or 3 paediatricians to get a better idea of the different styles of care available. It’s very important to find a paediatrician that you’re comfortable with.

While you can always change doctors it’s important that in their first few weeks you feel very comfortable talking with your paediatrician should anything come up. Once you’ve compiled a list of 2-3 recommended doctors in your area, check their websites to see if they offer a meet the doctor evening or schedule an individual appointments.

Before you venture into their office, remember to think about the questions you want to ask to ensure that their treatment methods are compatible with your family. When you finally settle on a paediatrician don’t forget to tell them your due date so they’ll be expecting a call from the hospital when the little one arrive. For even more great tips, visit www.cluelesschick.com .

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STEPHANIE GLOVER: That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Preggie Pals.
Don’t forget to check out our sister shows
• Parent Savers for parents with new born, infants and toddlers
• Twin Talks for parents of multiples
• Our show The Boob Group for moms who breastfeed their babies

[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media production. Information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though information in which areas are related to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, Medical or advisor care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.

SUNNY GAULT: New Mommy Media is expanding our line up of shows for new and expecting parents. If you have an idea for a new series or if you’re a business or organization interested in joining our network of shows through a co-branded podcast, visit www.NewMommyMedia.com .

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