The physical toll of pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood

Before I had children, I considered myself a fit and healthy person.

I had never broken a bone, stayed overnight in a hospital or sustained an injury so serious that it required rehab.

The physiotherapy allowance on my private health insurance remained unused every year. 

But all that changed when I gave birth to my firstborn three years ago. Thanks to pregnancy, childbirth and the demands of child-rearing, I found myself in all sorts of pain and discomfort, requiring regular visits to the physio. 

I was three weeks into motherhood when I was sick with mastitis, a breast infection from breastfeeding. I had no idea a physio could help with something like this but the GP and the lactation consultant referred me when their remit could not assist me further. 

The physio used a therapeutic ultrasound to unblock a clogged milk duct and a low-level laser to treat a milk blister. She then sent me home with pectoral exercises and stretches to avoid reinfection.

Say hello to Mummy's Thumb

When my baby was about six weeks old, I started to experience sharp, shooting pain in my left wrist and arm.

When the pain, and not the baby, was waking me up at night, I knew I needed help. Back to the physio.

I was diagnosed with De Quervain's tenosynovitis, a wrist condition caused by lifting, holding and feeding the baby around the clock. It's so common in mothers, that it's dubbed "mummy's thumb".

I wore a splint for six weeks and could only pick up my baby like a forklift: Elbows and wrists at 90-degree angles, with one hand under the baby's head and the other under her bottom.

I also had comical thumb exercises that I did obsessively to avoid steroid injections down the track. 

Pelvic floor rehab

When the breast and wrist pain was under control, I went back to the physio for pelvic floor rehab.

Due to the pressure of pregnancy and my daughter's forceps delivery, the muscles that support the bladder, uterus and bowels, had weakened.

After an internal pelvic examination, the physio gave my pelvic floor a dismal score of two out of five.

To improve it, she designed a program of daily kegel exercises, which involved squeezing and releasing my vaginal muscles while picturing canopies, hammocks and elevators.

Through the exercises, I was aiming to increase my score to a solid three. The physio said without doing the exercises, I was risking incontinence and pelvic prolapse.

The physical toll of motherhood

Finally, I enrolled in physio-led postnatal classes to rebuild nearly every part of my body, especially my core as I had lost all strength during pregnancy. 

After the birth of my second child last year, many of my symptoms returned, only subsiding with regular physiotherapy. 

Other mums were at the physio too, managing issues with their necks, backs, shoulders, groins, pelvis, legs and hips (sciatica), hands and arms (carpal tunnel) — all related to pregnancy, birth and child-rearing.

I had not realised the long list of potential postpartum pains and aches that women faced when they became mothers.

I had sought out the gory details related to birth but nothing related to recovery and rehabilitation. I thought the six-week postpartum check (usually when mums are cleared to drive, have sex and resume all "normal activities") would mark the end of all birth-related woes.

Along with how hard it is to breastfeed and how much newborns cry, I now add "the amount of physio I would need" to the list of things I wish I had known before having children. Then, I would have invested in prenatal physiotherapy and marvelled at my fully functioning, pre-baby body. 

I always thought physio was for old folks and elite athletes. Now, I know it's for postpartum women too, but I choose to liken us to the latter group.

Like sportspeople, we push our bodies to the limit of what is humanly possible, as that is what motherhood often demands of us.

Lucille Wong is a Melbourne writer and mother of two under four.