Mom Wrist: Tips for Pain Relief
What is Mom Wrist?
Mom wrist is medically known as De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, but is commonly known as the swelling of the thumb and wrist tendons caused by repetitive motion. This swelling typically leads to pain at the base of your thumb.
In short, it’s caused by using your wrist too much. For moms, it’s usually caused by frequently extending, flexing, and rotating your wrist while picking up and taking care of your baby. If it’s not addressed properly, it can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, which can cause pain when turning your wrist and make it difficult to make a fist or grasp objects.
Tips for Avoiding Mom Wrist and Reducing Symptoms
Keep your forearm, wrist and hand in a straight, neutral line as much as possible. This will be extra important while feeding your baby a bottle, grasping your breast to assist with breastfeeding, changing a diaper, and opening doors.
Take frequent breaks from holding up your baby’s head. Consider having your baby rest on your chest or using a baby carrier.
Avoid using a death grip and putting extra tension in your shoulders. Loosen your grip when feeding your baby (whether bottle or boob) and relax your shoulders.
When in a plank position, elevate your hands with a board so that they are at a 10 degree angle rather than flat on the ground.
When pushing a stroller, place your palms on the top of the handles and keep your wrists at neutral. You can also put your hands on the sides of the handles instead of the top.
Exercises and Stretches to Relieve Mom Wrist Pain
Upper body and back strengthening and mobility is key to improving our range of motion in our elbow, wrist and hand. Sign up below to receive a free download full of exercises and stretches to help relieve your mom wrist pain.
Plus click here to check out our app that includes our Pregnancy and Postpartum Guides full of exercises that can help as well.
What Else Can I Do for Mom Wrist Pain Relief?
To help relieve the pain, you should rest your wrist in its neutral position as much as possible. If resting your wrist in neutral is too difficult or not giving you enough relief, you can try a small splint or brace to stabilize it.
To reduce inflammation, you have a few options. You can try massaging some of the swelling out with your other hand by applying lotion to the area and pressing the inflammation towards your elbow/heart.
You can also try warm and cool wrist baths to limit the inflammation or try an anti-inflammatory drug such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen. (Side note: These are both safe to take while breastfeeding, but ibuprofen is best because less of it is transferred to your baby.)
If all else fails, you may need to contact your doctor to discuss corticosteroid injections or surgery. I would only recommend this if you have already tried everything and are still not seeing any improvement.
This is not something you can just wait out
Mom wrist can be extremely dangerous. We know that moms are very busy raising little angels, but self care is just as important. If you experience this only in one wrist, do not just use the other wrist to do things because it will only lead to two injured wrists. If you wait it out too long, it can become a surgical problem and you will have even less time holding the precious child you just created.
I hope this helps!
Xo. Krystle