Moms and Hip Pain: How Self-Care Can Help

Your hips may comprise the most complex joint in your body. The ball-and-socket configuration lends significant freedom of movement, but all the muscles and connective tissues crisscrossing the region provide ample opportunity for pain to strike. 

Mothers often have more than their fair share of struggles because pregnancy causes changes in this joint. They also face unique stressors in everyday life. Here’s what you need to know about moms and hip pain and how self-care can help.  

1. Movement Helps Prevent Stiffness

When something on your body hurts, the last thing you want to do is exercise. However, movement can significantly reduce the pain of many chronic conditions. Even though a recent meta-analysis showed the need for further investigation, several reviews showed a statistically significant improvement in pain levels, with only three showing no change. 

Exercise helps to ease pain through several mechanisms. The most straightforward way is by relieving tightness and stiffness resulting from remaining in one position for too long. For example, if you sit all day at work, your hip flexors can become inflexible, leading to achiness from muscular adhesions. 

Movement also improves circulation, delivering oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the injured area. This flood of goodness helps ensure that your tissues have all the raw materials they need for healing to occur. 

If you have arthritis, you might experience worse joint stiffness in the morning. This disease affects the cartilage that cushions your joints. Exercise increases synovial fluid flow, giving you more lubrication to help your bones move smoothly.

Finally, routine exercise helps you stave off the extra pounds that can compound any knee or back pain. It also decreases your risk of chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes that can also contribute to ongoing aches. 

Please take the time to squeeze in a workout, even on your busiest days. There’s an app for everything these days, including fitness in 5 to 10-minute increments. 

2. Yoga Stretches Complicated Meridians

If you haven’t indulged in yoga yet, why are you still waiting? You don’t have to endure an energetic Ashtanga class. You can sink into an ooey-gooey yin practice right in bed before you fall asleep. 

Think about your hips for a minute. What joins them to your torso? This area of your body contains tons of overlapping muscle and connective tissue. When some become more flexible than others through use, imbalances can cause agony that spreads up your back. 

Yoga helps to restore your body to balance, keeping all of these soft tissues pliable. You don’t have to devote much time, but try to fit in a few minutes of stretching each morning and before you go to bed. 

3. Massage Can Rub Away Aches and Pains 

Who doesn’t love indulging in a massage? There’s no substitute for professional treatments, but if you haven’t gotten your COVID-19 vaccine yet, you can learn at-home techniques. 

If you are an athlete, a deep-tissue massage can help work out pain and stiffness resulting from the activity. However, if your pain stems from sitting at an ill-fitting desk all day, a traditional Swedish version is more gentle. 

Various devices can help you perform massages on yourself. You can find multiple guns that work out tough knots, and foam rollers can also provide myofascial relief. 

4. Acupuncture Helps With Chronic Pain 

Your mind might not automatically turn to needles when you think of self-care for hip pain. However, eastern medicine practitioners have used acupuncture for thousands of years — nothing lasts that long if it isn’t effective. 

Western researchers believe the process works by activating nerve fibers as your practitioner manipulates the needles. This action stimulates your nervous system and tells your brain to release pain-relieving chemicals. 

You might feel understandably nervous before your first treatment. However, the needles are tiny, and once you experience the relief, you could get hooked. 

5. Chiropractic Can Realign Your Hips 

Your hip bones consist of several parts, and if any of them fall out of alignment from injury or sitting incorrectly, you could experience severe pain. It can also extend up your back as the crooked alignment throws your spine out of whack. 

Chiropractors use various techniques to manipulate your bones back into alignment. They’ll often begin your session using ultrasound or infrared sauna to heat the connective tissues, making moving the underlying bones less painful. They can then employ practices like the drop-table method to help your bones fall back into place. 

This self-care method sometimes requires your participation, although providers can correct some issues in a single visit. More complex trauma might require multiple sessions and regular exercise, much like attending physical therapy. Open up to your doctor about your pain medications and activity levels to get the most out of your care. 

Moms, Use These Self-Care Techniques for Hip Pain

If you are a mom, the self-care techniques above can help ease your hip pain. Give these methods a try today and experience the relief you deserve.