Pregnancy Massage: More than low back relief: The Torso

If you are making soup, especially a recipe that you have always known and are familiar with, changing one ingredient - either the ingredient itself, or the amount used - can make the soup taste drastically different. The same happens with the core of the body while pregnant. Even though the low back and the belly get all the attention, those small changes can cause changes in flavor to everything around it.

As baby grows, it doesn't just cause the abdomen to grow. It causes all the surrounding abdominal organs to change location and get squished. This can make it hard to breathe and restrict movement. Lower down is the obviously more visible changes of the growing belly which causes pain in muscles that you never knew existed, as well as major skeletal changes to the low back and entire shape of the pelvis. Plus the expanding belly makes the abdominal muscles - the ones that hold people in an upright position - virtually useless, which is why other muscles such as the ones that wrap around the body and into the back have to step up and work harder to just keep the body vertical and moving.

How massage helps:

Specific massage in the intercostals - the muscles between the ribs - can help make breathing easier and increase movement. Massage for the back and hips while properly supporting the belly and other body shape changes can ease the pain and tightness and help ease pressure on all the overstressed lower torso areas.

What you can do on your own:

• Support the belly: As the belly grows and stretches, supportive clothing or a "belly band" can help keep the extra weight from pulling excessively on the rest of teh body. Also try every pillow and pillow configuration you can find to support your belly, hips, chest, and back while sitting or sleeping. Long body pillows, contoured and C-shaped pillows, and tiny travel pillows all can be used in different ways and at different times to give support when needed. If the belly is supported, it can take pressure off of everything else in the trunk and core of the body.

• Breathing exercises: Try breathing exercises that utilize big, slow breaths and breathing into different parts of your body (high lungs, belly, sides, etc) to help keep the space and keep your breaths full. Use videos or guided meditation and breathing apps to help you focus on being aware of your breath and how you use it.

• Stretching and gentle movement: As tempting as it is to just want to sit and not move, keeping the muscles in the core and trunk moving through stretching and gentle twisting and bending movements can keep things loose and stretching in the right way to combat the painful involuntary stretching.

Don't wait until the end of the pregnancy to start getting massage!

The body doesn't change in a day, or even overnight. There are 40 weeks of changes - some bigger and more noticeable than others, but changes happening every day. Massage should be a part of the pregnancy the entire time because it adapts as the body changes, and may help some of the harder, more difficult changes to not feel as bad or too difficult.

This article is part of the series, "Pregnancy Massage: More than low back relief". Read more articles about pregnancy and the benefits of prenatal massage here.