“The physiotherapist warned that the pain would be worse whenever my legs were apart, so I immediately started panicking about birth, because that’s when you imagine your legs will be as far apart as they’ll ever be,” Sally says.
Turns out, Sally needn’t have worried so much as her baby Ella’s birth was pretty straightforward.
“The doctors and midwives knew about my SPD and I’d mentioned it in my birth plan. They knew I couldn’t go in stirrups because my hips would have been too far apart then. In the end I had a fabulous epidural and didn’t feel a thing. And the next day, when I got out of bed, my pelvis didn’t hurt anymore.”
For Sally and many other women, the end of pregnancy spells the end of SPD. But Alexandra’s SPD began during her labor.
Her labor was long and well…laborious, and midway through, she felt a monumental pain in her pelvis. Her baby, Niamah, was born after thirty-six hours with forceps and stitches.
“That night, the pain in my pelvis was intolerable,” Alexandra remembers. “I couldn’t sleep and cried out every time I moved my legs.”
“A doctor came and checked my reflexes, said they were fine and I should expect some pain after delivery. He made me feel silly.”
But the next day, concerned his wife was still weeping with pain, her husband James demanded she see a physiotherapist, who arrived later that afternoon.
“The physiotherapist said I had SPD, which had probably happened during delivery,” Alexandra explains. “She also said lots of old school obstetricians reckon [believe] SPD doesn’t exist, partly because there isn’t a definitive test. But what more evidence do they need but me?”
Alexandra was discharged after a week, with crutches “which weren’t exactly conducive to cradling a new born baby.”
She also wore a pelvic girdle for most of the following year, because many movements remained painful, “particularly pushing a supermarket shopping trolley [cart].”
But eventually after rest, time, massage—and she believes—helpful acupuncture, her pain receded.
“I’d like to have another baby, but I’m worried in case all this happens again,” Alexandra says.
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