Ep 68: Dr. Shannon's 5 Favorite Pregnancy Tips

In my years of working with prenatal patients in the office, I have found that there are 5 main items or principles that I end up discussing with them throughout their care, no matter their complaint or reason for coming to the office.  In the age of information overload, I try to keep it simplified by giving families these 5 things they can do. 

Now these activities or items I go over don’t necessarily replace chiropractic adjustments, but when 90% of the stimulation and nutrition to the brain comes from spinal motion, these 5 things to consider can impact nervous system function in a positive way.  

In this episode, I go over 3 exercises and motions to do daily (if possible), ways to improve sleep, and a key area to relieve tension not only during pregnancy, but also during labor.  

Resources:

Episode 55: Tips for Optimal Fetal Positioning 

Episode 49: Common Pregnancy Discomforts + Remedies 

Episode 45: Top Reasons to Seek Chiropractic Care During Pregnancy 

Episode 19: All About Prenatal Chiropractic Care with Dr. Shannon

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Episode 41: BirthFit Prenatal Chiropractic and Leader Dr Ashley Harper

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• 17:08 (Cont.) Ep 68: Dr. Shannon's 5 Favorite Pregnancy Tips

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aligned birth Podcast. I'm Dr. Shannon. I'm one of the hosts here. And today I'm flying solo. And I want to talk a little bit about what like five core things. I go over with pregnant patients in my office. It's kind of across the board. I get a little bit on my soapbox in the office with it because one big factor that I go over is something that I wish I had known and I think played a huge role in why both of my kiddos were sunnyside up so that occiput posterior, not optimal fetal position. And so I want to touch on that as well, too. So this one's gonna be again, we're gonna go over those five things, but I want to go over it's like I said, it's stuff that I go over with all of my moms. They don't necessarily replace adjustments, but it's things that we can do to and even daily to help maintain what we had the benefits that we've received from adjustments as well too. So and I'm going to talk about some of the other episodes to go listen to that build on what we're going to go over today. So I am super excited. We're just going to jump right in with Well, first of all, why we're talking about this. Um, you know, we've So Rachel I've done a lot of different Episodes Episode 49. We did our like common pregnancy discomforts and remedies. We've got Episode 45, which is the top reasons to seek chiropractic care during pregnancy and then even episode 19 Way back in the day, where we talk all about prenatal chiropractic care, and so on all of those episodes, that gives us more of that insight into what is the Webster technique? What is prenatal chiropractic care, the bone muscle ligaments that we're working on, so I highly recommend going and listening to those episodes. Today. I do want to really focus on because I sat down the other day and I was like, You know what, there are literally five things that I essentially go over with every single pregnant patient that comes in the office and it's not necessarily like oh, this I only go over this when they have sciatica or I only go over this if they're dealing with headaches, it's like across the board, and honestly, there's probably five you know, there's probably more but this is what I could come up with. Now, like I said, these are the things that go over with all the moms in the office. Again, they don't necessarily replace those chiropractic adjustments. These are things that we can add into our daily activities. That's why I kind of like to call them like core five core, you know, things that we can do, because not necessarily all of them are like exercises. One in particular I'm like, well it's not really an exercise, but it is like a core daily habit that we can be aware of. But So again, these aren't replacing our chiropractic adjustments, but it really is helping to maintain the progress that make with those adjustments. Now, some of these things, most of them, we're going to deal with some sort of movement or motion again, not not all of them are there's one in particular where I'm thinking it's not but why I think that motion is important and why exercise movement is one of my pillars of health is that 90% of the stimulation in nutrition to our brain is coming from spinal motion. So what happens if that spinal motion is not correct, right? When we have a segment of the spine that doesn't move as it should, we're going to have improper motion and we're going to have improper nervous system communication, Brain Body Body brain communication. So those adjustments, set the stage for that proper alignment and that proper nervous system function and motion. So yes, these movements go with what we have set in motion with the chiropractic adjustments. So that's how these things are connected. And then I have a couple things at the end of the episode, I want to go over that some additional resources because why am I just focusing on the five because we tend to be an information overload society, right? Because if you go online right now you can find 35 things that you should be doing every day and so that can get overwhelming. So let's keep it simple and what are some of the core things that I think we could focus on? Not necessarily the only things you have to do but or even just pick a few of them, but still, let's jump right in. So the first one I like to make sure all of my moms get is a yoga ball or a birthing ball however you want to term it and this is something I like all of my patients to have, especially if they're sitting all day is to have that yoga ball.

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With this with our prenatal patients. I want to make sure that we're sitting on the yoga ball, not all day because this can be exhausting because this really you don't have any lumbar support here so it's igniting all the muscles and we're making things work a little bit harder. So in that instance, you can get some muscle fatigue so I'm not asking you to sit on it all day. But just know that it is more giving than say like a office desk chair right we can move with it. I love having that yoga ball and sitting and doing some figure eight motions, rocking the hips, getting that beautiful feeling in motion in the pelvis and sacrum, almost using that relaxing hormone to our benefit because we do have a little bit more motion now because we do have more relaxed and hormone in the body during pregnancy. Now one key thing is I think it helps to get more of that anterior tilt to the pelvis. So when you're sitting on that yoga ball, I don't want you leaning back and like kind of sitting more on the sacrum I want you tilted forward sitting on those systems engaged in those systems. There's a sacred tube response there. So I want you sitting on those that gives you an anterior tilt to the pelvis that lets the belly hang a little bit more. Right. So and you can even kind of sit and just kind of feel if you tilt that pelvis forward a little bit more, you're rocking more on those systems. So that's how we want to sit we also want to make sure that our hips are not lower than the knees. So you have to make sure that it's blown up really, really well. So we don't want to be kind of like sinking down in it. But you can sit on this. You can just sit you can do rock side to side or back a little bit and then you can do those figure eights when you're off on those systems. And that's a beautiful exercise to do. Um, I will say this, I've dealt with patients before and I'm like, Okay, I want you to get a yoga ball. And we're going to start using this, you know, and this is for people that aren't pregnant like this is everybody and I want us to start using this throughout the day if we're working from home, to stop using our desk chair for a little bit and come and use that and I'll never forget I had a gentleman and he was a gag. I think everyone was like, Oh, how's it work? And he's like, Well, I haven't blown it up yet. So I say get the yoga ball and then I always check in and I'm like, have you blown it up yet? Like I got to meet people where they're at, but it is it can be a very important tool in your birth bag because you can also use this during labor. I do remember I sat in a rocking chair at the hospital. But you know if you have a birth ball, you can sit and you can actually labor on the ball as well. So it's multifactorial. So that's one that's what that was number one that we talked about that we're talking about. Um, the next one is Oh, I did want to mention this. You can also do a modified Child's Pose with the birth ball. Now, I love Child's pose but it gets difficult and it's a yoga pose we'll go through in a minute but it gets difficult as the belly gets a little bit bigger. You can't really like lay on the ground as much so you This is where you are Kind of kneeling on the ground. You can have your big toes together and you'll spread the hips wide or not necessarily have to be like the knees wide and that stance will get wider and wider as the belly grows. Now ideally you want to reach the arms out and really stretch. Gosh, this can open up that low back and really give some relief. Now not only can you do this early on in pregnancy, as the belly gets bigger, you can lean on the yoga ball, and that can elevate you a little bit to where you're not laying flat on the ground, especially if bellies gotten bigger. But you can also do this like leaning on a chair and really open up that low back. So that's kind of like a maybe that's an additional one to this but I do love manifests child posts to really help open up and I'm thinking like low lumbar so l four l five s one like opening up everything down in that low low back. Cat House. So this is another yoga pose that I love to have my moms do and we'll go over. Remember I mentioned at the beginning that there was something that I wish I had known but this is directly related to it. So with cat cow, you're kind of in that tabletop position. It's nice to start in that neutral spine and almost thinking of like 90 degree angles and everything like the wrist on the ground up to the shoulders, through the torso and then down to the pelvis. We've got the knees on the ground and then the feet behind you so kind of thinking that 90 degree angles everywhere. And then this also changes throughout pregnancy as belly grows. But you'll take your big breath in and that's when you're going to kind of arch the back

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into that cat so that kind of like you know, think of cat like where you know, kind of angry, they're all fluffy and the arch that is really opening up that space between the shoulder blades and then we'll exhale, drop the belly and breathing the head up and looking for and just really feel that stretch in the spine. And you go back and forth through with the motion of the breath. Nothing fast. Take the motion of the breath and then you can actually increase that inhale and exhale as you go. This is a beautiful one to do it. You don't necessarily have to really get that belly to the floor and do the cow as we go. Later on in pregnancy. It's sometimes nice just to come back to neutral and then arch the back a little bit more and then come back to neutral or even go to a child's pose if you want and really stretch out that way. So just be mindful of the low back. I guess disclaimer before all of these as well too is that you know don't do anything that causes pain or discomfort and go over any of these exercises with your health care provider before doing any of them. But again, we're not pushing to a point of pain. This isn't necessarily an exercise, this is our core things to do. Now. The other added benefit of being on this hands and knees position is that as the baby is developing, the spine becomes that heaviest part. And so if we've got that belly towards the ground, we're in tabletop, well then it releases some of the tension not only on those uterine ligaments and what's holding the uterus in place, but then it allows for that heaviest part of the baby to rock down towards the front of mom's belly, which then can help give us our optimal fetal positioning. So that was a whole episode we did to optimal fetal positioning and it was a fairly recent one. I can't remember off the top of my head. I'm gonna link it in. I think it was maybe 5755 I think episode 55 tips for optimal fetal positioning. So this is one of the core movements that we talked about. Now. Listen to that episode as to why we want that optimal fetal positioning, but this can allow for the baby to actually the head to be facing your pelvis if that makes sense. Because then the back of the head is then towards the ground. That's where the spine is if we're in that tabletop position. Now, here's the fun story about when I was pregnant with both of my kiddos so if you've listened to any of the other episodes, I haven't been a chiropractor my whole life. I didn't get my first adjustment till I was 36 weeks pregnant with my second kid. So come to find out both of mine were sunny side up. So that's where they come out face up. And that's what we call that occiput posterior so the base the skull the opposite the base, the skull of the baby is facing mom's posterior Mom's back. That's not ideal. That's a little bit more back labor and it's yes, you can give birth in that position. It's just not optimal, right. So with both of mine though, I was working I was still at the CDC then and I was doing in some instances, I was doing a lot of lab work and bench work, but I was also doing like data entry on the computer. And so I was at a computer all day. And I would just you know, my back hurt. I would lean back in my chair and I would prop my feet up and I pretty much did that. I feel like I did that like all day because it was comfortable. It relieved aches and pains. And then of course I had swelling in the feet like that's what I would do, but I would do that for extended periods of time in the day. Well remember what I just said about cat cow and remember what I said about the heaviest part of the baby as the spine if we're leaning back in our chair, and we're propping those feet up that heaviest part of the baby again is the spine now we're rocking that spine towards Mom's back. And where's that put the face that puts baby's face looking straight up and that gives us that sunny side, baby? Is that the only thing that gives us a steady set up baby? No. Do you have to do that? for extended periods of time? I think to get that. Yes. So propping your feet up mama and resting and relaxing. I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying being mindful of how much you're doing it. And maybe we can do some cat cow at the end of the day which I did not do to really combat those. That positioning. All right. So that's my soapbox that I get on the office and I go over that with all moms whether my mom is working or not because I think it's just that awareness, right? It's bringing that awareness to hey, this could really impact that fetal positioning. So

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something to think about walking. This is another core thing I think and you know, I've done some prenatal exercise episodes in here too. And even postpartum exercise once I ran through my pregnancies, I loved exercising and working out so you don't have to go that extreme. But remember I said 90% of that stimulation nutrition to the brain is coming from spinal motion so movement movement is key but when it's medicine, and so if we can keep up a walking routine, that's amazing. And so and I know the ebbs and flows of first trimester, you may not feel it. second trimester you might third you might not you know I get it. So just meet yourself where you're at in those aspects of being able to be physically active. But here's one thing to think about though, because in having some moms come in the office. I can kind of tell when we've got some sciatic stuff. If I can see him get up out of the chair. I can see them hold the low back I can see one leg is really not moving like the other and I'm like, ooh, we probably have some sciatica stuff going on here. So with that, if we're in that extreme amount of pain, walking sometimes is even too painful to do. So this is where Yes, I definitely think those chiropractic adjustments can help let's make sure that we have a balanced pelvis and sacrum and that we have optimal nervous system function that can help us then move our body better. So that's what I am looking at with walking and some of those chiropractic adjustments in the office with my mom's so that is my third one here walking so the next one here is one that's where I'm like, Well, I can't really call these my you know, top exercises and things because this isn't really an exercise but although I guess later on in pregnancy when you're trying to sleep, it can be an exercise because of all the time you're getting up and down. Going to the bathroom but I always recommend to my moms to sleep with a pillow between their knees, but I'm also going to add in sleeping with a pillow like between the chest pad and the pillow. Okay, let's be honest, I still do this. So it's not this again is not limited just to pregnancy and you know, folks coming in with some low back issues I do need to start talking about putting a pillow between the knees but when we've got the that the pelvis expanding, right and we've got that relaxing hormone and if we lay on our side which is ideal right for sleeping if we don't have a pillow between the knees, then those knees can kind of come together and that can really put some strain on some of like the ilio femoral ligament. Some of those outside lateral hip ligaments are so as muscle are low back and everything in the pelvis like that can really put some strain there because we've got some collapse of the hips there. So having that pillow can really help bring that top knee, again level to where it's not collapsing so much. So that's the focus with that. Now I'm not going to I'm not recommending a specific pillow because that is I know some some moms love that giant you know body pillow I had several different ones that I would like push and mess or mesh around me because I just couldn't handle the one. I even had a little wedge pillow that I could put between my knees and then also I could put to where it could go under my belly and help like lift that up a bit to where there wasn't so much pressure there. So I really liked that little ledge when it's just like a little fell wedge. But can't forget about the chest too. So a lot of times we can collapse in that chest that can really make that sternoclavicular joint that se joint right there at kind of like the base of the neck at the front of the body. It can really compromise that area as well too. So we might be feeling some shoulder pain. But what's really happening is we're sleeping on our side, our chest is collapsing. We're getting a really really mobile joint here and it's really messing up that whole kinetic chain. So always I always look at checking some of that see joint, but hugging a pillow there can help offset how that chest can collapse as well. So that again is one of my core things that go over with my pregnant patients in the office. Last one coming up is relaxing the jaw and bringing awareness to maybe where we're holding some tension in the body. Here Now here we're gonna go through a little bit of an anatomy lesson because if you have heard or have seen any read anything, I see this a lot from midwives talking about when they're working with their moms. And we're laboring and they are tense, they we can focus on relaxing that jaw to help us maneuver through contractions and maneuver through some of the pain now. That is because the jaw is connected to the sacrum now that might blow your mind but I mean, as you know and I've said in almost every episode on YouTube that everything is connected

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in the body and no organ system body system works alone as well. So how is the jaw connected to the sacrum? So let's take it back to we've got this cerebrospinal fluid that covers the spine and it bathes the spinal cord and then it comes up into the brain as well. So you've got to think you've got this all the parts of our spine or cervical thoracic lumbar going down into the sacrum as well too. Okay. And that spinal cord is then tethered at the end there and it connects all the way up to the brain. And so we've got this meninges and this dural tension in this dura mater that covers the spinal cord. That's what's connected to those bony structures in the spine. But then it also comes up into the brain and so the spine the cerebral spinal fluid, covers everything that gives that nourishment it removes toxins from the spinal cord and so it needs to be pumped and moved. So we have this cranial sacral pump in the body. So the bones of the skull actually move you've got this beautiful sphenoid bone that looks like a butterfly in the skull and I mean, I guess technically you could even feel it. It's right like lateral of the eyes. And that's where some and like temporal bones all in there. This moves and I'm not talking big motion here, but this is how that cerebral spinal fluid is pumped through the body. So we have this beautiful motion of the sacrum and the cranial bones and a lot of it is that sphenoid bone and that's how the cerebral spinal fluid gets moved throughout the body. Now again 90% of stimulation in nutrition to the brain comes from spinal motion. This is what I'm talking about. Right we've got these motions of the body so we need that to be mobile and we need it to move now when we clenched the jaw, the jaw so you can kind of feel where the upper and lower mandible is part of the jaw maxilla mandible joint right there, at right in front of the ear. So when you open and close your mouth you can feel it. This is so close to the sphenoid bone and all those cranial bones and so when we kind of clench that jaw, we can shut off and alter that motion there. So that's where releasing the jaw and letting that tension go and focusing on the breath a little bit. That can definitely bring about better cerebrospinal fluid motion and just to help release that tension and so I personally love the guasha tools and so I will actually not only just for skin health I'll do my little washout routine for my face, but I will even take it and you there's there's rollers that you can use I have just like a just another little tool and I will at some sides I will have a lot more tension at that to TMJ joint is what it's called a temporomandibular joint right and so you can feel that tension there and I will sometimes rub it out. Sometimes it's really tender and I'm like man, I must have been clenching my jaw a lot lately. Sometimes it's not, you know, and I'll feel it in my ear. Like it's just amazing again how everything is connected in the body. So you can even use some of the squash out tools to help release some of that tension there and then promote that optimal motion of the cranial bones and motion of the spine. But again, too, and this is personally with me in the office. I do a little bit of cranial work at the end of every adjustment to because yes, we've worked on pelvis and sacrum we've got that motioning and moving but I also want to make sure that we have assessed you know, any cranial restrictions that are going on as well too. So those are my five core. I like to go over with all of my mom's in the office. Um, like I said, there's more to this though, and you can add to this. So two of my favorite things to go to is spinning babies and birth fit and so I'm going to link to both of those. Go listen to I did an interview with Dr. Ashley Harper and so she's a chiropractor and birth fit instructor. So episode 41 and 42. We go over she goes over everything but first bit so there's lots more to it and focus on breath work. And those are wonderful things and spinning babies as wonderful a whole list of like daily activities and exercises that you can do to so add to this list or maybe incorporate some of these things into your daily life. And then you can even use these and carry these on into that postpartum type period too. So I hope that you have learned something today and thank you so so much for listening to this episode.

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