Hiking with Pelvic Girdle Pain

As you all know by now, I’m an avid hiker, I love the outdoors and love bringing my kids along with me.

But in my second pregnancy I experienced Pelvic Girdle Pain (PGP) from when I was roughly 5 months pregnant. My experience of it was, quite literally, like there was a crack down the back of my pelvis. I would feel pain on both sides of my pelvis and it would get worse when leaning on one side. Hello clingy toddler!

Pelvic girdle pain affects quite a lot of us, nearly 60% of women experience this in their pregnancies. Due to the change in the levels of hormones, in particular, relaxin, the joints and ligaments become looser and less stable, getting ready to make room for our growing bubbas!

However, this can cause pain at the front or back of the pelvis, it could be just one side, or both sides of the pelvis. It also could feel a lot worse when walking, climbing stairs or leaning on one side, due to places all your weight on one side.

If you have other children, picking them up, putting them down, resting them on your hip could all aggravate it.

If you are experiencing pain, I highly suggest you seek medical attention and advice.

I wanted to do something about it and started to take a few exercises that I was already doing each week and make them into a mini circuit that I could do before or after going for a walk.

These exercises were:

Glute bridges with adductor squeeze

Hip thrusts (on the sofa)

Side planks with hip dips

Doing these exercises regurlarly each week did ease off the pain during and after walking in hiking, but I was still experiencing aches afterwards and whilst sleeping, so I knew that enough was enough.

I sought my physiotherapist’s advice and they suggested I wear a sacroiliac (SI) joint belt, in order to help support the pelvis and keep it more stable. Now, I’ll be honest, I didn’t wear it that much, I know! But as I was in the third trimester it just kept squishing my bladder more than anything!

However, and this is it. I couldn’t stop going walking and hiking with my toddler whilst I was pregnant. That was a non-negotiable for me, it was my happy time, my time away from distractions, my time to be outside, my time to be active, and most importantly, my chance to spend quality time alone with my toddler.

Normally, I'd just try short walks, to the local park and back, or routes that I knew were flat terrain. But I was itching to go out further and keep being as active as possible as far along in my pregnancy as I could.

So one day I decided to place it underneath my structured hiking carrier with my toddler. Wearing the SI joint belt underneath felt great! The belt worked like a compression band as it compresses and stabilises the pelvic joint, whilst I was transferring weight from one foot to the other, and going over bumpy footpaths, which would normally lead to more movement in the pelvis.

After the hike I didn’t experience any pain that I would have normally and felt relieved. It allowed me to keep hiking, as I did not experience the pain during or after a hike, like I used to, even hours afterwards.

I was so happy and was able to carry on hiking until I was 39 weeks pregnant!

Please know that if you are experiencing PGP, you are not alone, it can be managed and please seek medical treatment. Also, I know everyone’s journey is different and I am extremely fortunate to have been able to have an active pregnancy.

If you need any support, let’s chat :)

Happy walking!