That pregnancy glow sure looks good on you! But what can you do to help with the aches and pains that come with pregnancy? One of the best ways you can keep your body feeling good is by having good posture throughout the day. Good posture allows your spine, muscles, and ligaments to work the way they were designed to and reduces muscle strain and tension, including tension headaches, and improves circulation, digestion, and lung capacity. But keeping good posture during pregnancy may sound much easier than it is.

Pregnancy changes your body’s center of gravity, your ligaments, and connective tissue get looser, and your abdominal muscles make room for your growing baby. All of that makes good posture more difficult, but with a few tips and tricks, you can be sitting and standing up straight and feeling your best all day long. The very first step to maintaining good posture during pregnancy is to make sure you’re starting with good posture. Try to find a full-body mirror or have someone take a picture of you from the side.

What do you see?

What I hope you see is:

• your hips are stacked above your ankles

• your tailbone is in a neutral position

• your ribs are not flared out to the front or arched out in the back

If you aren’t sure what you are seeing, try moving one part at a time to the non-ideal position and then back, as that can help you see where the middle ground is. When your hips are positioned over your ankles and your tailbone and ribs are neutral then your spine is positioned to support the body as a whole, and no part is out on the fringes having to support itself.

Practice Good Sitting

Most of us spend a large portion of our day sitting, so the way we sit can make a huge difference in our posture. Unfortunately, many seats, chairs, and couches are not designed with posture in mind—they’re designed to keep you comfortable for long periods of sitting. It takes a little intentional effort to create a space that encourages good posture while sitting, but it is worth the time!

A good place to start is by making sure that you are sitting on your “sitting bones.” When you’re sitting, if you feel just inside your hips, you’ll feel two bones, one on each side. The weight of your body should rest on these bones when you are in a sitting position. If you rock around a bit with your hands underneath you, you’ll feel these bones rotate forward and back, so that some positions have no weight on these bones at all. Sitting in those forward or back-leaning positions causes your back and abdominal muscles to support you and can lead to low back pain.

Using a birth ball or exercise ball as a chair is one way to make yourself sit on your sitting bones. These ball chairs force you to sit upright with both feet on the ground, which is great for your hips and back. If you have a regular chair, adding a lumbar support pillow can help keep you up on your sitting bones, too.

Any time you move forward or back off of your sitting bones, you put additional pressure on your low back, hips, and abdominal muscles to support your body, which is why they hurt when you get up to move around.

Support Your Core

Another great way to help maintain good posture is by using a pregnancy support band. These bands wrap around your hips, low back, and abdominals to give them extra support and also keep you in good alignment. Pregnancy support bands are especially helpful if you are going to be on your feet for a long period of time or doing more intense exercise.

The band isn’t meant to be worn all day—it doesn’t replace your core muscles, nor do you want it to—but those muscles are working overtime to hold your body during the pregnancy and the support band gives them a helping hand.

As you walk, exercise, or stand, your core muscles can get tired from the additional size and weight of your abdomen during pregnancy. A pregnancy support band enables you to continue on with your normal lifestyle without overworking those muscles and avoiding the aches and pains that come with a tired core.

With these tips and tricks, hopefully good posture will become part of your new routine. There are several health benefits you’ll experience as a result of your body parts working efficiently together: better digestion and circulation, increased lung capacity, and core strength, just to name a few! So say goodbye to some of those pesky aches and pains of pregnancy and welcome in a new day of energy and proper alignment!

About the Author Rebekah Mustaleski is Compression Director with MotifMedical.com and a Certified Professional Midwife with Roots & Wings Midwifery in Knoxville, TN, where she promotes evidence-based maternity care for families seeking an out of hospital delivery. She is working to improve maternal outcomes during the childbearing year and to promote a sustainable business model for midwifery practices across the country. Rebekah is co-owner of Roots & Wings Midwifery, LLC as well as Treasurer for the Tennessee Midwives Association.