Do I have PGP?
The main symptom that women report when they have pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain (PGP) is pain while walking, bending, climbing stairs and turning over in bed.
While pelvic girdle pain (PGP) may be common during and/or after pregnancy, pain is never normal.
Please talk to your GP or midwife as soon as you start to feel pain around your hips and pelvis to discuss different options for your care, support and treatment.
Many women and birthing people experience pelvic girdle pain in their hips and pelvis, when getting up, getting dressed, climbing the stairs, exercising, driving, sitting or standing for long periods. This means that it affects virtually everything you do in a day, which has a major impact on your life.
This pain can be an ache, a sharp shooting pain or a deep muscle pain. You may also have a clicking or grinding feeling in your pelvic joints or in your hips.
The main symptom that women report when they have pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain (PGP) is pain while walking, bending, climbing stairs and turning over in bed.
Find out more about pelvic girdle pain in our videos:
PGP can affect your physical mobility and your emotional wellbeing. Find out more about your PGP and how you can get treatment and manage your pain on our website and in our free ebook “PGP is treatable!”.
Pelvic Partnership FREE ebook “PGP is treatable!”
Your pelvis is made up of three joints which work together in a ring-type system. When women experience pelvic girdle pain, their pelvic joints are not working normally. Often, one joint becomes stiff or stuck and this causes irritation in the other joints (you may not even feel pain in the stiff joint). By treating the stiff joint, a manual therapist can help the joints to function normally again, and allow the irritation at the painful joint to settle.
Pelvic girdle pain used to be known as symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD) but this name implies that it affects only the symphysis pubis joint at the front, which is not true as any or all of the three pelvic joints can be affected, and commonly the two sacroiliac joints at the back of the pelvis are the cause.
When women experience pelvic girdle pain, they may experience pain in and around their hips and pelvis, especially when they get up, get dressed, climb the stairs and sit or stand for long periods. Without treatment, the pain can get worse.
Pelvic girdle pain is treatable. Please see links below to find out more about how to get treatment:
Alongside treatment, women can use different tips and approaches to manage their pain during their recovery. Here are some practical tips on how to manage your pain:
PGP can also have a big impact on how you feel emotionally, because coping with the physical challenges of day-to-day life can be difficult and leave you feeling low and isolated. One of the problems is that there is nothing to ‘see’ with PGP – you aren’t wearing a plaster cast and pain is not visible to others. Often, women feel cheated because they expect to be blooming and enjoying their pregnancy but, in fact, are struggling because they are experiencing pain that no-one can see. This can be compounded if you have other children at home already, and you are struggling to care for them too.
Practical suggestions for managing your PGP
Pain and PGP
It is common to experience depression and/or post-traumatic stress disorder during and/or after having PGP. Please do not be afraid to ask for assistance from your GP or family and friends to help you get through this difficult time. You are not alone and there is support available, so please ask!
PGP can be safely and effectively treated with hands-on individualised treatment, including manual therapy from a physiotherapist, osteopath or chiropractor.
Donate today to help us help others with pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain (PGP)
Donate now
