Why Parents Have Back Pain, and How To Feel Better

There’s nothing like a little back pain to make those long, busy days seem like torture. Since becoming pregnant three years ago, my body has endured a crap-ton of discomfort. Why, you ask? If you have to ask, you are likely not a parent, since I think all of us can think of at least fifty reasons why our bodies might be in need of a little TLC and recuperation. Here are a few of mine.

Reasons My Mama Body Aches

• Carrying a kicking watermelon and an entire swimming pool in my abdomen for months. Not exactly a zen experience.

• Getting chopped open to let the little tadpole out of my body. I had such an awful experience recovering from my emergency C-section. Even if everything does go smoothly, I don’t think it’s always recognized that caesareans are a major abdominal surgery, and require a lot of rest and care to recover properly. Well, as properly as you ever will recover, anyways. Nothings going to be the same inside after all this.

• Carrying a child around in your arms, for hours on end, who demands that you bounce rhythmically while you walk around shushing, and never stops getting bigger and heavier.

• Shoulder rides. My god.

• Contorting your body and spine in the most uncomfortable ways so that your babe will hopefully sleep and stay there, while your bastard of a cat crowds your legs and you teeter at the edge of the bed in a knotted spaghetti pose.

• Achieving acrobatic feats in order to get your child to sleep in their crib, and sneak away in the hopes that  you don’t step on a creaky board and have to start all over again.

• Trying to reach into the back of my truck without crashing, to pass my toddler a Kleenex or snack or water or doll or whatever it is that needs to be passed before one of us suffers a seizure from the screaming.

• Strains and sprains from your cat-like reflexes catching all manner of falling and flailing items and children while you balance a zillion snacks, toys and possibly other children in your arms.

• Baby wearing. It’s awesome, don’t get me wrong, but still not as comfortable as going for a walk without 25 pounds of squirming toddler on your back.

• Leaning. Oh all the leaning and crouching and bending you do as a parent. It’s important to get down to eye level with children, but it’s also another good reason for booking a massage.

How To Ease Back Pain

There are more reasons. I’m sure I could keep going all day, but really, I just want to tell you about this awesome thing that made my incredibly sore back muscles feel much better last night when I felt like I was probably going to just lay down and die right on my living room floor because of the pain. Seriously, I was amazed at how much this helped. Though I’ve done yoga before and am no stranger to how much better it can make you feel, it was still a delightful surprise to feel my aches slowly fading away as I followed these movements – even with a toddler climbing all over me and escaping her Daddy to make sure I was still paying attention to her.

So here it is, ladies and gentlemen. This YouTube video by PsycheTruth was a magic worker for my back pain, and hopefully it can give you some relief, too. Plug this baby on in to your TV, or set your laptop somewhere close to your yoga mat, and get ready to feel better. So many awesomely effective poses.

There. Feel better now? If you’re even a little bit more comfortable and relaxed, then I’m happy I could help. Now, go book yourself a massage. Doctor Hannah’s orders. (If only I could always follow my own advice, eh?)

Note: I am not a doctor. My writing is too clearly recognized, and I have no idea what the knee-pit is really called. Any advice is from personal experience of what has helped me.