This blog is about the very common condition, neck pain. Read how we are at a greatly increased risk of getting neck pain as a Mummy and what we can do to minimise the potential.

I have never known a love this intense! Without a doubt I would take a bullet our daughter. As a new mother, we are holding our babies in absolute adoration, examining with wonder all their little features, never wanting to let them go.

On the other hand many of us are struggling with teaching our baby and ourselves how to breast feed. In my case this was extremely painful and traumatic.

Both of these extremes and other motherly tasks such as holding our baby to try and get them to stop crying or to go to sleep or alternatively falling asleep ourselves in awkward positions in utter exhaustion can be very taxing on our neck and shoulders, causing pain and dysfunction.

“I have never known a love this intense!”

Neck pain and stiffness is probably the most common ailment mothers come to see us for. Most of the time it is just muscular stiffness but this can also include joint stiffness, disc bulges or neural tension, to name a few.

Looking down

Looking down at your baby for long periods causes the muscles on the back of your neck and shoulders to stiffen up.

Pain and stress

If we are in pain, as I was trying to breast feed (See my blog on Mastitis) or stressed from your baby that won’t go to sleep, you very commonly hunch your shoulders which will again tighten these muscles causing pain.

Breastfeeding

Even if breastfeeding is pain free, we very commonly round our shoulders to cradle our baby. When we do, this tightens our pec muscles in our chest which makes it harder for us to hold our head, neck and shoulders in a good posture which also causes stiffness in our neck and upper spine. See my blog on Breast feeding for more information of this.

Lifting our babies

If we hold a permanent rounded shoulder posture (which many of us were guilty of in our desk based or hands on jobs) we can get the above stiffness’ but also weakness in important shoulder and neck muscles. This can cause pathologies such as rotator cuff tendinopathy and bursitis. You may have this predisposition from your paid job and then as a Mummy start lifting a lot more than you used to, and this will greatly increase your chances of these shoulder pathologies. I digress from the neck topic of this blog but it is all so interrelated.

What can we do to prevent the pain in the neck?

Posture

At all times try to hold your neck back so your ears are sitting on top of your shoulder, opening up the back of your neck to be as tall as possible.
When looking down at your baby hold this posture above and look down with your eyes rather than lowering your neck. See the blog on Breast Feeding for more information on this.
When holding your baby, put your baby high on your shoulder and close to your midline so that they can nestle into you without you having to tilt your neck down or to the side. See the blog Carrying your baby Beyoncé style or not for more guidance on good manual handling when carrying your baby.

“Put your baby high on your shoulder and close to your midline so that they can nestle into you without you having to tilt your neck down or to the side”

Breast feeding tips

When breast feeding hold your neck as above and put a pillow on your lap which can take most of the weight of your baby so you can hold your shoulders back.
Like many Mummies of our era, we pass the many hours spent breast feeding looking at phones. Try to resist holding the phone down on your lap, but rather hold your phone at eye height with your elbow resting on your lap pillow.
If you are experiencing pain from breast feeding get some advice from a lactation consultant, midwives or community nurses. Try as much as you can to relax your shoulders down to minimise the muscle tension. The Breast feeding blog gives more information on this.

“Try to resist holding the phone on your lap but rather hold your phone at eye height”

Strengthening exercises

Try the neck strengthening exercises as suggested in the last blog, Wrestling with a terrible two to help you to be able to hold the strong postures above.
When holding your baby take note if your neck muscles that go from that bottom of your skull to your shoulders are relaxed. If they are not, this is often due to weak rounded shoulders. Simply pulling your shoulder blades down and together toward your middle back, can make these neck muscles relax! Pulling and holding your shoulder blades “down and together” for 10 seconds repeatedly until you fatigue, whilst breast feeding or carrying your baby, will strengthen this posture.
Gaining strength in your leg, core, shoulder and arm muscles is going to help significantly in preventing overuse and thus pain and tightness of your neck muscles. See your physiotherapist for more strengthening ideas.

“Simply pulling your shoulder blades down and together toward your middle back can relax the neck muscles”

Physiotherapy

Lifting requires really good motor control in regards to timing the contraction and release of different muscles. As I said initially, this is a really common problem in the whole population, which is exacerbated when Mummies carry tired postures, are deconditioned and are lifting more compared to what we were used to, prior to the birth of our baby. This can not be educated in a blog. You really need a physiotherapist to assess and guide you in this.
Don’t hesitate to book an appointment with your physiotherapist to massage your tight muscles or mobilise your stiff joints. This will then enable you to start to hold the good postures that will help prevent these pains returning.

Summary

Neck pain is an extremely common pain condition that is exacerbated by the duties of a Mummy.
Paying attention to your posture when holding your baby will really help prevent these pains.
Strengthening muscles in your neck and shoulders will help with good posture.
Mummies often put themselves last but you need to look after yourself to be at your best as a Mummy. So book in to see your physiotherapist, at least for a therapeutic massage to help relax your mind and your muscles.

Melli Tilbrook is a Physiotherapist based at Adelaide Physiotherapy and Pilates Studio, Beulah Park

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Pain in the neck