Pelvic girdle pain (PGP) is referred to as pain at the front or back of the pelvis (or both) during pregnancy. There is often no obvious explanation for the cause of pelvic girdle pain; usually, there is a combination of factors that contribute to it. Most women with pelvic girdle pain can still have a spontaneous vaginal delivery (4). They should speak with their midwife about their birth plan, including pain relief options, as well as alternative positions for birth, such as supported kneeling or side lying. Using a birth pool may also help freedom of movement (5).
A cesarean section is not usually needed or recommended for women with pelvic girdle pain as this might slow down recovery (5).
Activities which often produce pain include (1):
These factors could increase the likelihood of someone developing pelvic girdle pain. It does not mean everyone with these risk factors will develop symptoms.
The main risk factors include (2):
Other risk factors may include (5):
Factors that are not associated with pelvic girdle pain include (2):
Approximately 1 in 5 women will experience pelvic girdle pain at some point in their pregnancy (2).
A woman’s health physiotherapist and other appropriately qualified healthcare professionals can provide you with a diagnosis by obtaining a detailed history of your symptoms. A series of physical tests might be performed as part of your assessment to rule out other potentially involved structures and gain a greater understanding of your physical abilities to help facilitate an accurate working diagnosis.
Your treating clinician will want to know how your condition affects you day-to-day so that treatment can be tailored to your needs and personalised goals can be established. Intermittent reassessment will ascertain if you are making progress and will allow appropriate adjustments to your treatment to be made.
As part of the sessions with your physiotherapist, they will help you to understand your condition and what you need to do to help the recovery from your pelvic girdle pain. This may include reducing the amount or type of activity, as well as other advice aimed at reducing your pain. It is important that you try and complete the exercises you are provided as regularly as possible to help with your recovery. Rehabilitation exercises are not always a quick fix, but if done consistently over weeks and months then they will, in most cases, make a significant difference
Below is some advice which often helps with pelvic girdle pain (5):
Exercise is recommended to treat pelvic girdle pain (2). It has been shown to decrease the severity of pelvic girdle pain during pregnancy (6).
Below are three rehabilitation programmes created by our physiotherapists targeted at addressing pelvic girdle pain. In some instances, a one-to-one assessment is appropriate to individually tailor targeted rehabilitation. However, these programmes provide an excellent starting point as well as clearly highlighting exercise progression.
It is also important to complete pelvic floor exercises daily during pregnancy to reduce the risk of pelvic floor dysfunction during or after pregnancy. Please refer to the additional resources below for further information or have a look at the pelvic floor dysfunction section of our website.
This programme focuses on moving the pelvis and lumbar spine (lower back), as well as beginning gentle strengthening of the abdominal and pelvic girdle muscles to help maintain stability. Some of these simple exercises can be performed little and often during the day to help relieve pain. This should not exceed any more than 3/10 on your perceived pain scale.
In this programme more focus is given to progressive stretching of the pelvis and lumbar spine, and strengthening of the abdominal and pelvic girdle muscles. Try and complete this programme once daily. You may wish to continue the gentle stretching exercises in the early programme little and often throughout the day too. This should not exceed any more than 3/10 on your perceived pain scale.
This programme challenges the pelvic joints and muscles by reintroducing some positions that may have been uncomfortable previously. Again, it may be helpful to continue with some of the exercises from the previous programmes, particularly if you found they gave you some relief. Aim to complete this programme once daily. This should not exceed any more than 3/10 on your perceived pain scale.
93% of a woman’s symptoms improve 12 weeks following the delivery of her child (2). Breastfeeding will not slow the rate of recovery from pelvic girdle pain (5).
For women whose symptoms do not settle postnatally, or those who are struggling with return to a higher level of function or sport, we would encourage a consultation with a musculoskeletal physiotherapist as they will likely require further progression beyond the advanced rehabilitation stage.
As part of a comprehensive treatment approach, your physiotherapist may also use a variety of other pain-relieving treatments to support symptom relief and recovery. Whilst recovering, you might benefit from further assessment to ensure you are making progress and establish appropriate progression of treatment. Ongoing support and advice will allow you to self-manage and prevent future reoccurrence.
Treatments such as acupuncture, manual therapy, maternity belt prescription or mobility aid prescription may also provide relief, but they are not recommended as stand-alone treatments (2). If your pain is severe then regular pain relief might be needed (5). Your GP can discuss options with you.
Pelvic Girdle Pain:
Looking after yourself during pregnancy:
Exercise during Pregnancy:
Pelvic Floor Exercises:
Please book an appointment with one of our physiotherapists if you think you are suffering from this condition and would like to find out more.
We have Pure Physiotherapy clinics across the country including Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Manchester, Stockport, Sheffield and Rotherham. Please view our clinics to find the closest physiotherapy clinic for you.
Sciatica is a symptom describing pain and/or pins and needles down the back of the leg.
Common age-related changes to the structure of the hip joint may be associated with pain, stiffness and loss of function.
Lumbar discs sit between each of the bones of the spine. Problems can occur when these discs become irritated.
Pure Physiotherapy Limited (PP) understands that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how your personal data is used and shared online. We respect and value the privacy of everyone who visits this website, www.purephysiotherapy.co.uk (“Our Site”) and will only collect and use personal data in ways that are described here, and in a manner that is consistent with Our obligations and your rights under the law.
Strictly necessary cookies are required on this website to help us remember your options, and also protect our website and our users.
We use a range of technologies on our website that restrict and deter the use of bots. These include Google's ReCaptcha service. https://www.google.com/recaptcha/about/
To read more about our Strictly Necessary Cookies, Please Click Here
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping these cookies enabled will help us to improve your experience on the Rehab Direct website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!
Pure uses cookies when you use our website, https://purephysiotherapy.co.uk to help improve security and improve the experience of our users.
Before any cookies are placed on your device, we will present you a message bar and the opportunity to learn about the cookies we use, and we will allow you to give consent to the use of cookies that are not strictly necessary.
Click Here to view our cookie policy.
