Sleeping or lying down while Pregnant
You will often find it hard to lie down closer to term because of indigestion and bladder frequency but a comfortable sleeping position for your back adds another woe. If lumbar flexion (leaning forwards) helps you when standing then coiling up in to the foetal position yourself with your knees drawn up, allows you to mimic lumbar flexion, opens up your back and takes the strain off the exiting nerves and joints and may flatten a bulging disc. This may serve to reduce inflammation and irritation of the nerve and make sleep and the next day easier. Where leg pain is particularly intrusive bending the affected knee up towards your tummy with the other leg straighter may cause additional relief. Additionally, you can lie on your tummy with pillows or beanbag supporting your chest and pelvis arranged so that the abdomen effectively pushes your lumbar spine backwards and flattens the arch. In some patients lying on their back with a small pillow under the knees may offer easement of back ache but the bump may make this uncomfortable to sustain.
If you maximal benefit occurs when you arch in to lumbar extension, then lying with your knees bent and your spine slightly arched may help to take the pressure off the nerve and flatten the disc wall and reduce irritation of the nerve. Alternatively, you can lie on your tummy with pillows or bean bag supporting your chest and pelvis arranged so that the abdomen effectively relieved of pressure and your lumbar spine sags forwards and increases the arch.
When lying on your side try to use enough pillows to raise your head and keep your neck horizontal to avoid strain which may be masked by the symptoms in the lumbar spine. As if that is not enough try to minimise the arch in thoracic spine by remembering to squeeze your shoulder blades together and to pull them backwards. Try imagining that you are “squeezing an orange” between your shoulder blades.
Getting out of bed while Pregnant
Don’t twist and heave yourself out of bed as this twists the joints in your back, may make the disc bulge and strains your muscles of the abdominal balloon. If you are on your back, and wish to leave the left side of your bed, draw up the right knee and place your right hand on the left side of the bed.. Use both to roll you to the left side. Now draw up the left knee and while dropping your ankles over the side of the bed, “tighten the tum and squeeze the bum” and push up from the bed with the right hand. Once steady, the abdominal balloon prepared, then stand up.
