Dr. Whitney's story: Why women's health

Everyone has a story — a reason why they do what they do. With many chiropractors, it’s often something like, “I had an injury and chiropractic helped me more than anything else, so I want to help people in the same way.”

To be honest, that’s why I decided to become a chiropractor. I had low back pain during high school track and cross country, and chiropractic care helped me tremendously. I wanted to help athletes the same way my chiropractor helped me. In my first two years of chiropractic school, I thought I wanted to treat only athletes and have an entirely sports-based practice. However, everything began to shift when my husband and I learned we were expecting our first baby.

When it all started: My first pregnancy

When I was pregnant with my first child, I received chiropractic care throughout my pregnancy. Along with chiropractic care, I went in for my normal OB/GYN visits, which were every month, then every two weeks, and then every week. Regular chiropractic care helped me so much while I was pregnant, and my experience confirmed for me that I had chosen a great path.

Our daughter was born during finals week, just as I was wrapping up my second year of chiropractic school. I decided to take a trimester off, and I was able to stay home with her for almost five months. Those were some of the most challenging but beautiful months of my life, and I loved being a new mother.

When chiropractic care wasn’t enough

The joy of being a new mom was often overshadowed by increasingly severe low back pain. I again turned to chiropractic care for relief, but this time, nothing seemed to stick. I would get adjusted sometimes three or four times a week, thinking that more adjustments would make me better. Flares became more intense, would last longer, and would occur closer together. It was nothing like I had experienced before or during pregnancy.

I had low back pain for months postpartum, and I struggled to pick my baby up because of pain. There were times when I called my husband to come home from work because I didn’t feel like I was able to pick my daughter up off the changing table to change her diaper.

I felt like I was lost. I felt like I was already failing as a mom, and my baby was only a few months old.

I was frustrated because I felt like somehow pregnancy and delivery had damaged my body, and that just didn't make sense to me. I didn’t understand why this was happening to me, because my OB/GYN had cleared me at my six-week check. I thought I should have been fine, and it was so obvious that I wasn’t.

I started talking to other moms and I realized that many women were having the same problems I was, but they just weren't talking about them. When my daughter was about a year old, I finally decided to see a chiropractor who specialized in movement. He didn’t just adjust me, he also watched how I moved and helped me learn how to move the way my body was actually meant to. Everything made so much sense, and I began to finally see gradual improvement in myself.

Finding the missing piece

This piece — exercise and the intentional preparation, training, and rehabilitation after birth— is what was missing for me during my first pregnancy and postpartum experience.

I was hungry for more information, for more answers, and I began to attend tons of seminars focused on core and pelvic floor function, movement, and stability, and I knew that I wanted to focus my future practice on helping women. At this point, I decided to focus on women’s health.

I chose to specialize in women’s health because I believe women deserve to feel strong, capable, and confident in their ability to take care of their children. After my first birth, I realized that there really is no standard of care for postpartum women.

Women deserve better.

I’ll say it again. Women deserve better.

Women deserve more than a single routine follow-up visit at six weeks postpartum. Women deserve to not feel like they’ve been forgotten by their healthcare providers. Women deserve real answers and real solutions.

“Well, you did have a baby, so this is normal now” is a cop-out answer. Just because what you’re feeling is common does not mean that it’s normal.

What women’s care can look like

In my office, I help women with pelvic pain, low back pain, incontinence, abdominal separation, and headaches, but what I really want to do is give women the confidence to take care of their children without pain.

To be able to be intimate with their husbands without pain.

To go for a run or belly laugh without being afraid of a leak.

I want them to feel like they’re able to be the women they want to be and not have pain or fear hold them back.

When I’m working with a woman during pregnancy, chiropractic adjustments are usually a key piece of our treatment. Many women have come to expect adjustments from their chiropractors, and adjustments will often give them a ton of pain relief and better mobility throughout pregnancy.

When we switch into postpartum, however, it becomes a whole different ball game. We’re no longer dealing with wanting to open up the pelvis to let baby down — we’re now trying to re-establish some stability that we’ve lost during pregnancy. And this loss of stability is inevitable. As you grow a baby in your belly, the muscles have to stretch to make room, but then after birth, that’s our time for rebuilding, and that’s when exercise comes in.

Chiropractic adjustments are an incredibly powerful tool for us, but by changing how we move — through exercise — we can make changes that last.

My message for the struggling postpartum mama

If I could tell a postpartum woman who’s struggling with her body and recovery one thing, it would be that you are not broken. Your body isn’t damaged; pregnancy and birth didn’t break you. You are strong and your body was made for birth. You might just need to work on using your body more efficiently.

As I’ve worked with women on generating stability through their breath and truly engaging their cores, glutes, and hip muscles, I’ve been able to see some amazing changes in how these women move.

Most importantly though, I’ve been able to help and see women be more patient, more present, and more engaged with their children and families.

That’s my real “why.”

To any woman reading this: You don’t have to keep waiting to take care of yourself and get the care you need. If you have any questions about care during pregnancy or postpartum, please don’t hesitate to call our office at (402) 256 6683.