Prevention

Pain management for hands, wrists and arms during pregnancy and postpartum

Issues such as carpal tunnel and mommy’s wrist often come up without warning.

You may feel a tiny bit of discomfort in your hands, wrists and/or arms and ignore this in order to continue to care for your child. Often the pain is ignored until it becomes severe and debilitating affecting your ability to lift, hold, carry, diaper change, feed and play with your baby.

It is important to catch any feelings of discomfort or minor pain early in order to stop the swelling and tightness from worsening.

This could mean the difference between only using ice, stretching and lifting adjustments at home to manage the issue versus going to occupational therapy for months, maybe steroid injections and worst case surgery depending on the type of issue you are dealing with.

It is so important that you advocate for yourself and tell your doctor that you are having pain when taking care of your baby, even if it is minor pain. The earlier you mention the issue the sooner you can receive a referral to diagnose the problem and receive care. If occupational therapy is recommended it takes time to schedule an appt. sometimes the first appt. is a month out. Staying ahead of the issue is key.

The information on this website supplements recommendations from medical providers and teaches real life techniques that you can put into practice in your own home. My hope for you is that by doing these techniques you will be less likely to become injured. However, if you do become injured or are coming to this site already injured, I hope that these techniques will help you to manage your injuries as they heal.

Each step outlined below is designed to be done in tandem in order to treat these issues in a preventative way:

  • Ice

    Step 1

    For minor pain start by icing the affected area every 3-4 hours for a few days to help bring down the swelling. Optional: In addition you can try using topical over the counter anti-inflammatory creams such as voltaren. I use Salonpas which is a pain patch.

    Sometimes if the injury just happened and is only causing minor pain, icing may take care of the issue. If that is the case I still recommend that you continue with Step 2 Stretch and Step 3 Adjust to help stop the injury from recurring.

    If your pain continues to worsen then I suggest you move on to Step 4 and get in touch with a medical professional.

  • Stretch

    Step 2

    Do the stretches that I review in the stretching section in addition to icing. I found that doing them when I woke up in the morning and before I went to bed the most effective. It helps to loosen and relax your body for the day ahead and then stretch-out any sore muscles before you go to sleep.

  • Adjust

    Step 3

    In addition to the prior 2 steps, adjust how you are lifting and caring for your baby. Depending on where you are feeling the pain and discomfort will dictate how you adjust your movements.

    Look back at these prior sections for tips: Nesting, Lifting, holding and carrying your baby, Pushing a stroller, Bottle feeding and Burping, Rocking and bouncing baby, Devices for lifting, holding & carrying, Devices for rocking & bouncing

  • See a doctor

    Step 4

    Contact your health care provider (obgyn, primary provider, midwife, nurse practitioner etc.) for a referral to see a sports medicine doctor a.k.a physiatrist, especially if your pain is not improving after trying the prior steps. I highly recommend seeing a sports medicine doctor first before seeing an orthopedist. The difference between sports medicine doctors and orthopedists is that orthopedists have the additional training to provide surgery as a treatment option. However, I have found that sports medicine doctors recommend less invasive treatments first such as using splints and occupational therapy (see the recommended providers section for provider recommendations).

Key Information:

What is occupational therapy? A type of therapy that helps a person improve his or her ability to perform any activities of daily living, such as changing a diaper. Upper extremity issues like carpal tunnel and mommy’s wrist would qualify to see an occupational therapist.

When doing my research I found that the treatment for issues such as Mommy’s wrist mainly involved icing, splinting, steroid injections (which can affect breast milk supply) and surgery. Treatment did not include occupational therapy or activity modification. More recently occupational therapy is becoming the more popular choice to treat patients with initially, however, I urge you to advocate for this option if it is not being offered to you.

Most likely your doctor will give you the choice between therapy, steroid injections and surgery. I highly recommend trying occupational therapy first before steroid injections and surgery. It is the least invasive treatment option. With occupational therapy you are receiving one on one personalized recommendations for stretching and strengthening the affected area that will help you manage the issue long term. A limited amount of steroid injections can help the area initially, but eventually without therapy the issue may come back and you may need another steroid injection and subsequently surgery depending on how bad the pain becomes.

What is the purpose behind using a splint/brace for your hands, arms and or wrists?

It is a way to immobilize the affected area to allow it to rest while still enabling you to do your activities of daily living. The idea is to stop the same repetitive motion from occurring and irritating the affected area.

My thoughts on splinting:

Splinting is a tricky treatment, for some people it may help and for others it may not. Therefore, I recommend you see a health care provider first before you try using a splint.

There were a few splints that I tried and liked.

One caveat is that it is very difficult to keep the splint on while taking care of a child…I did not find it to be the most practical method to rest my wrists and hands. Wearing them at night while sleeping could be very uncomfortable for me and cause stiffness in other parts of my arms and shoulders.

ComfyBrace Carpal tunnel wrist brace : I found this brace to be the most comfortable brace to sleep in and most effective to calm down the discomfort in my hands and wrists

Elbow Splint, Cubital tunnel brace, tennis elbow support, Ulnar nerve brace: This was the first brace I tried…this brace was recommended by my sports medicine doctor to help with the nerve damage I experienced in my elbows. This also comes in a size small, which was difficult to find.

Velpeau wrist brace with thumb spica splint: This brace is specifically for mommy’s wrist/thumb. It also comes in a size small which was great for my small hands. I found this to be much more comfortable than the shorter braces that are only for your hands.

Vive Thumb & Wrist brace for right or left hand: This is the shorter version of the velpeau wrist brace. I generally did not find this comfortable and it tended to make my pain worse after wearing it. However, the benefit of using this type of brace is that it allows you to do more activities while wearing it. I found it to be most useful when I was typing and using my mouse.

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