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Episode 12- The Benefits Of Prenatal Massage

In today’s episode I chat to Victoria, a prenatal RMT about the benefits of prenatal massage! Learn more about how prenatal massage can help manage pain, improve pregnancy symptoms and even the perks for the babe!

If you’re an expecting mama and you’re unsure about prenatal massage, learn what to look for in an RMT and what exactly to target during your time.

• Introduction (0.38)
• Prenatal Training (6:05)
• Round Ligament Pain (12:33)
• Natural Baby Skincare (16:15)
• How Prenatal Massage Can Help Sciatica (19:59)
• Prenatal Massage For Swelling (25:38)
• The Benefits Of Prenatal Massage For The Baby (30:17)
• How Often Should You Get A Prenatal Massage (32:50)
• The Story Behind Elephant In The Womb (36:02)
• Wrap Up (37:36)
• Mentioned In The Podcast
• Connect With Victoria

The Benefits Of Prenatal Massage

Welcome to the fit as a mama bear podcast. I’m Shelby and certified strength coach, nutrition coach mama to two and all around health nut. This show is about a little bit of everything. Tell me that a natural related, so if you’re striving to smash goals, eat better, feel better, and enjoy the occasional mom ramps. This is the place for you. You’re listening in to episode 12 today where I’m chatting with Victoria, also known as the elephant in the womb, about benefits of prenatal massage to Victoria as a registered massage therapist, childbirth educator and period coach who works local to me. It was a girlfriend who put us in touch and I literally can’t wait to delve into our brain.

Introduction (0.38)

Welcome Victoria. So thanks for jumping on with me today. I am super excited to chat about all things massage. I actually have a massage booked to Wednesday. I’m not pregnant though. But I feel this is just going to make me impatient waiting for it. Victoria, why don’t you take a couple of minutes to tell us a little bit about yourself and all of the things you do.

All right.

So in 2016 I graduated from Fanshawe college with my advanced diploma in massage therapy and pretty much right away knew that I wanted to work in the perinatal field.

So, my very first day on the job, my first client was a pregnant person and coming out of school and not having any special training in it, I was kind of worried, but then I did it.

I literally went up to the clinic owner and was like, “what do I do”? And he’s like, you’re self employed. Figure it out.

Oh my God.

So that was scary. But it very quickly showed me how interesting it was and how much more I wanted to learn about it.

As well with growing up, my stepmom had four home births with my younger siblings. She’s a trooper, so I was always kind of exposed to the first world and holistic care.

And just being really involved I guess in pregnancy and birth and postpartum. And then you get older and you realize that not every pregnant person’s journey has that care there and focus.

So, once I found out that massage therapy could help that I was all for it. And I was like, all right, what else can I learn? So just kind of always being exposed to the world of pregnancy.

Then I moved to Windsor for a little bit and worked at a pregnancy clinic there. I did my childbirth educator training and started teaching some prenatal classes and just kind of getting to massage people while also talking about pregnancy related things to help them feel more educated and secure was just working great.

I just kind of continued my education and learning and I’m still constantly learning. But yeah, I definitely have a very women’s health centered practice now.

So, first off, the fact that you said you’re, you’re still continuously learning is my favorite part about that story because I think as coaches and anyone who helps any person, you have to continually learn, you can’t just be done.

You always new things evolve things. So, thank you. But please explain what a period coach is.

This is a great questionI So it’s kind of hard to put into a very quick sentence. But essentially, my background was in childbirth education. Then I worked with the red school through the UK and took courses in hormones, menstruation, menopause. Kind of everything surrounding hormone harmony and then channeled that into becoming a period coach.

There’s not very many of us. There is a couple in Toronto, you’ve probably read some books by them maybe.

And it’s a little bit more common in like Australia and Europe. They’re always ahead of the game, right?

I basically work with people and their cycles to help with things like cramps, regulating it, people that are trying to conceive, talking about birth control, like kind of just everything uterus related. I provide education and information to work with people and help them achieve where they want to get with their cycle.

Oh my God, I love that. Kudos to you. I didn’t even know that that existed to be perfectly honest.

It’s definitely newer and I think I think it would probably grow in popularity as people learn it exists and time goes on, especially with the gaps in the education system.

Like, I think back to when I was in high school, I, I don’t even think I knew what ovulation was until I was like 20 years old.

Yeah, agreed.

So as adults, I think it’s important to have these resources and help each other and talk about the weird stuff that we just like Google at like midnight in our bed.

So true. That is amazing. Anything that kind of gets the discussion happening I think is a good thing.

Today we are going to be focusing more on the prenatal massage aspect, but now I have a million questions about being a period.

Now, I had massages through both of my pregnancies, mainly for postural stuff and because I was still working out, I did also have a please induce me labor massage.

I also didn’t know that those pressure points were all on your feet. Like that was mind blowing to me. My RMT is awesome. She’s sports specific, but she’s also a doula, which  is amazing for me because it kind of embraces the hippie side and the fitness freak in me.

So, with your schooling, obviously you’re a registered massage therapist and what additional things did you have to take to more focus on the prenatal form of massage?

You mentioned walking into your first massage or a pregnant lady being a little bit unprepared and which understatement. What part of your training do you think was the most beneficial to prepare you to treat pregnant ladies?

Prenatal Training (6:05)

I would actually say going in, working at the pregnancy focus clinic in Windsor helps me the most, I took one while I was there through the States.

I took my infant massage instructor certification and prenatal courses. And while being in a classroom maybe is a good learning experience for some people. I had already known a lot of it from my childbirth educator training cause we learned all about the anatomy and how to assist through births and everything.

So, I found most helpful sitting in on the other RMTs and chiropractors who worked on the pregnant people and just sitting in being a fly on the wall and watching and listening to what they were doing.

Maybe that’s the way I learn is like just being an observer and like being hands on there and that being like, okay, feel this ligament here and what it’s doing. So I definitely found that most beneficial.

And those were practitioners that have been in the prenatal world for decades. So kind of feeding off their wealth of knowledge was very helpful. And just getting in there and being hands on, because you can read as many books as you want, but when you’re faced with the real deal, it’s a lot different.

Oh well that’s the way it is a training too, right? The theory only goes so far to dealing with individuality and having to kind of work around that. Is there an actual course specific to prenatal massage?

So with our regulatory body, they don’t have a list of approved courses per se. It’s kind of use your judgment and further your education wherever you would like.

In school for registered massage therapy, we do go over pregnancy massage. I would say for us it was about a three hour lecture and that was it. So everyone should come out of school equipped to treat a pregnant person.

But not everybody comes out equipped with the extent of the knowledge of people who work with pregnant people often. If that makes sense.

No, it does.

I think that’s what freaks me out is it’s like, it sounds terrible and I hate to make this jump in, but it’s like a doctor, a general doctor giving out meal plans or nutrition advice is they study nutrition for what? Like a millisecond in their entire medical career.

Yeah.

And that’s just it. If someone came to me and was wanting sports massage, I would probably refer them out because that’s not my wheelhouse.

Right.

It’s like my coworkers, if they have someone who is interested in, whether it’s breast massage for mastitis or pregnancy or babies, they’ll refer them to me.

And I really think there’s something important about knowing what you know and referring out when it’s best to refer out.

The reason I ask the question is that when I was pregnant with my first, I was looking for a, an RMT for pregnancy massage.

And so I booked with one lady and I specifically asked if she directly billed insurance or if she’d just give me the receipt. Her answer was: “Oh, I’m not, I’m not registered that way”.

So I was like; you are marketing to pregnant ladies. Specifically prenatal massage and you are not a registered RMT. Do you know the damage you can cause by manipulating someone’s bodily systems while pregnant?

Yes.

And that drives me bonkers.

Like there’s, there is a couple people like that within like a wide area, not just like London that I’m talking about, but within the community we all get to know each other.

And it definitely can be dangerous. The claims that I see, that these, people are making is very scary.

I have heard of it people who say like, not RMTs but who say that they will correct the position of your uterus so that you can get pregnant. Or that people that say that they can definitely induce labor. Right.

 Like you said, like it’s very much so being careful of your wording and your knowledge. I don’t even want to get into it, but there’s people who are not RMTs are saying they can do internal massage.

Yeah. I was livid. And then my first question is “how many people don’t ask if you’re registered?”.

Yeah. Or don’t know to ask. That’s why I think it’s really important to spread the knowledge of checking in with all your health care practitioners.

So chiropractors, massage therapists, physiotherapists, we’re all regulated and registered. You can go to, it’s called CMTO, the college of massage therapists of Ontario.

You can go to the website and there is a registry where you can look up anyone’s name and make sure that they hold a valid RMT license and you can see any dings on their license or charges that they’ve had.

And I strongly recommend people do this. I know who your RMT is, she’s clean, but you’ll be really surprised within London, some of the massage therapists and chiropractors that have a pretty lengthy list of slaps on the hand.

I’m totally Google this after we are done this.

Yeah, so that would be my tip for people is if you’re seeing somebody advertising something, just go in and look it up and see if they’re actually registered and regulated. Because there are people in town who offer prenatal massage that are not RMTs, who have only taken a couple of weekend courses.

So it’s a huge. A lot of the times these people don’t actually hold insurance which is scary.

Especially when you’re working again with pregnant ladies, it’s already a high risk situation.

Okay, well why don’t we kind of go into the main reasons that I wanted to chat about regarding massage, prenatal massage. And basically how it can help me pregnancy easier on the body and the babe.

So, the first one I wanted to chat about was round ligament pain. I heard, I personally feel this is just a very generalized term when you’re pregnant for any possible pain you may feel is round ligament pain.

 

Round Ligament Pain (12:33)

Yes. The term is thrown around a lot.

Yeah.

So do you want to give us a bit of an overview of what round ligament pain kind of is and how massage therapy can help it?

Absolutely. So everybody’s got a couple of ligaments, one on your right side and one on your left side. And the round ligament actually goes down from the groin and the pelvis.

Okay.

And it attaches and wraps over onto the uterus. So when we’re not pregnant there’s not much strain on it. It kind of just slowly contracts and relaxes keeping things loose. Sometimes it can contribute to like period cramps.

However, once you’re growing a baby and the uterus is stretching, it puts a lot of added pressure on those ligaments. So instead of nice and slowly contracting and relaxing any sudden and quick movements.

So say you stand up too quick or if baby moves too quickly that can pull on that ligament and it will tighten up rather than slowly relaxing. And when it tightens, that can pull on nerve fibers which causes that sharp pain and discomfort.

So for some people round ligament pain it can, it can feel really different. For some people it might feel like that sharp pain and for some people it might feel like a crampy contraction.

It all depends on your body and your nerve fibers and what’s going on. But that’s basically what round ligament pain is.

So it is kind of general, but it just means that one of your two ligaments, that stretching is kind of fighting back on the stretch that’s happening cause it does stretch immensely.

You can imagine not being pregnant. How that ligament sits versus having three month belly and then some.

As it grows, what puts a lot of pressure on it, which is why a lot it’s very common that most people do experience some round ligament pain.

So, how massage therapy can help that is we’re working out the tight round ligaments, which means not only is it relaxing them and teaching those tendons and ligaments to relax in the area, but it’s also giving more room for baby because when they’re tensing up, they’re trying to get their polling.

It’s putting that pressure on them.

 Exactly. So to be able to keep them relaxed, it means there’s more room for baby to move around, get into optimal position. Everything can just flow a lot better.

What we’re doing, we work for the round ligaments is getting the abdomen undraped, so towel over the chest sheets tucked around the waist, super comfy, and then working through the abdomen and the baby bump.

And then we’re pretty much just kind of stripping through the ligament and putting pressure in certain pressure points to try and get it to relax. So sometimes it just needs that physical reminder of like, okay, we can relax here. Okay, this is your new length. Everything is going to be okay.

So this can help with that round ligament pain with baby having more room, you can probably feel like you can breathe better cause when the round ligaments aren’t good attracted it tightens the belly and pushes everything kind of in an up so it can put that pressure on the diaphragm and the lungs and make breathing tough.

So round ligament massage can help with that as well. Of course, then it can decrease the intensity of Braxton Hicks contractions that are coming up. So massage is awesome for that.

And then there’s also the options of doing some kin tape to help take pressure off the round ligaments. With that, we’re essentially trying to lift the skin off the ligament so that the nerve fibers aren’t triggering.

So that’s a great option for people that experience a lot of round ligament pain because kin tape will stay on for anywhere from two to five days. So you can get that continued relief and support.

 

Natural Baby Skincare (16:15)

Taking a mini break here to chat about one of our sponsors. I never really considered what I put on my body in terms of lotions and potions until I was struggling to get pregnant. Actually, it was my holistic nutritionist who told me that I should check in to my skincare products and see what ingredients were in them, and I was mildly alarmed at how many came back to disrupt hormones.

This alone is one of the things that made me start making my own products. However, now as a busy mom, I don’t always have time to make my own stuff and some things I simply fail at deodorant and shampoo being the biggest issues.

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Now I have, it’s funny because I always thought of round ligament pain more in the early trimesters that’s I think where I experienced it the most. But it would be probably the opposite for the majority of females is as the baby grows, it’s placing more strain.

Correct. Yeah. So especially with a first pregnancy, most people do experience more round ligament pain the farther into pregnancy that they get. However, I would say with subsequent pregnancies, people feel it a lot more earlier on. And I think that’s also because people can recognize what the pain is and remember how it feels.

And your body recognizes too.

Right. So it tries to expand a lot sooner.

Yes, exactly.

That makes more sense.

Pain’s not fun. No. One of my girlfriends works in the ER and she said that it’s one of the number reasons that pregnant ladies come into ER is because they, they think that they’re miscarrying because of the cramps or the stabbing pain. Just a growth happening and then triggering a lot of round ligament pain.

Yeah, it can be really, really scary or people can think they’re going into like early labor. Like it’s no joke. Lot of people I think like write it off as being like; “Oh, that’s just a little round ligament pain or a Braxton Hicks contraction” and it’s like, Nope, that’s a very real and intense pain for a lot of people

And it is intense. I think people forget that with pregnancy because being pregnant is just; “yeah, you’re pregnant”. But no, a lot of changes happened. Very uncomfortable. It’s not awesome.

Oh I know. Everyone says the miracle of life and like talk to my clients. Pregnancy sucks. It’s not always awesome.

That was me. I was like, I kudos to anyone who enjoys being pregnant, it is just not my favorite place to be.

So on that note of uncomfortableness, talk to me about sciatica. This is another really, really common issue. You’re while you’re pregnant and when that causes a lot of pain to females.

 

How Prenatal Massage Can Help Sciatica (19:59)

So sciatica is, again, kind of one of those general terms. There’s a few ways that it can happen. So for anybody listening that’s not familiar, a psychotic pain typically starts from around your tailbone and goes through the glutes and the butt cheek and down the leg.

For some pregnant people, they might experience this as only staying local to the glutes. Or, they’ll feel it shoot all the wheat down. It totally depends how much compression there is.

Sciatica is compression of that psychotic nerve. Typically what’s doing this is our piriformis muscle.

Why this typically happens is because as you’re growing your belly, not only are ligaments changing and relaxing in the pelvis and spreading things open, but typically as the bump grows bigger, our center of gravity changes.

You start to arch your back when you walk and the feet start to turn. So it’s when you get that little duck walk that things get risky for developing sciatica.

And that’s because you imagine your feet are straight out in front of you and if you turn your feet out, so you’re looking like a ballerina, just put your hand on your butt cheek there and feel how everything tightens up.

So as we’re doing that external rotation there, it’s contracting our piriformas muscle. It’s like you can imagine if your neck was always kinked to one side, right? That side is just going to get tighter and tighter and you’re probably going to experience some tingling.

And that’s what’s happening essentially with the glutes is they’re tightening up from that duck wattle and then the piriformis, the sciatic nerve that’s going through the piriformis, this muscle doesn’t want to let go unless we’re actively working it out.

Stretching, foam rolling it. Trying to correct the posture of how you’re walking.

So it’s much easier to prevent sciatica than it is to treat it. It is super treatable while pregnant, but it’s something you have to stay consistent with.

Typically once you develop sciatic pain during pregnancy, it’s going to kind of have flare ups for the rest of pregnancy and sometimes beyond. So if you’re pregnant and you’re listening to this, do some piriformis stretches foam roll out your glutes and get to that space.

But massage is basically working to lengthen and elongate that piriformis muscle to take pressure off of the sciatic nerve. So what we want to do is just get it back to that relaxed state, get some length going in it again and so that it’s relaxed and not putting that pressure right on the nerve, which is causing that pain.

It can be like sharp shooting pains down the legs. Some people it’ll give them numbness and they’ll of feel like they get up and then they’re going to fall over and their legs just going to give out.

So massage can definitely have that working through like the sciatic joint, trying to release some of those ligaments and the posterior chain of fascia, it’s all connected, right?

And then being diligent with stretches at home like is also very important. But a lot of people, I’d say like the number one complaint of pregnant people that come in is either sciatic pain or low back pain of some sort.

So it can be very helpful. My rule of thumb, and I know a lot of other RMTs that work in the prenatal fields believe this too is you should be getting a massage as often as you’re seeing your own midwife.

So in the beginning phases of pregnancy, a little bit less, but as you get more pregnant, maybe it’s every two weeks and then that last a month every week just to really stay on top of things because things change a lot quicker.

You might not have sciatica for the majority of your pregnancy. And then at the very end be like, Oh crap, what is this sharp shooting pain that’s making me want to cut off my legs?

And it really is terrible. I was lucky enough not to have it too, too badly. And I think in truthfulness because I am a really big foam roller.

The other thing is that I see an osteopath during pregnancy too. So she kind of helps set things where they should be because I do typically tend to jam my SI joint all the time, which gets annoying.

But yeah, sciatica pain is, I think one of the number, probably the second reason pregnant ladies feel discomfort. I’d say the first is definitely low back pain.

And I’d say it’s a bit of a conundrum because for low back pain you do want to keep the glutes strong to help support the hips widening and to help support the baby bump. But with strong glutes you also want to keep your hips mobile so that they’re not impinging on the sciatic nerve.

Yes, it’s a big balancing game.

I think it just goes hand in hand and it’s something that you have to focus on both sides in order to have the least amount of pain.

That’s totally the best way I can explain it.

And then I also wanted to chat about swelling. So this was one of the reasons that my girlfriend started seeing her RMT while she was pregnant, she was having twins. So there’s that.

But she was also having really, really wicked time with swelling on her lower body. And in my experience, massage therapy has always helped with that because it improves a little bit circulation. So I’m assuming you see a lot of prenatal clients who are hoping to reduce a bit of swelling pain.

 

Prenatal Massage For Swelling (25:38)

Yes, totally. I always like to remind everyone that It’s good to have a little bit of swelling. That extra fluid is kind of helping a body to soften and expand.

So, it’s normal to have a bit of swelling. But when we get that edema, it is nice for a massage and try and work everything out.

And there’s so many things that can affect swelling, right? Whether it’s hormones or the growing uterus, everything is changing.

So there’s a technique called MLD, which is manual lymphatic drainage that I believe we’re all trained in in school. I’m not sure if that was a Fanshawe specialty, but it’s exactly what it sounds like.

So we’re manually pumping the lymphatic system, which is where we get our swelling to return everything to the heart. So manual, lymphatic drainage and cupping actually are what I like to use on pregnant people to help.

Put that swelling in the ankles. I would say just for anyone that’s listening, cupping when you’re pregnant is very different from when you are not pregnant.

I’m glad you touched on that because I was thinking “Oh my God”.

No, you wouldn’t be leaving with the big red circles. It’s very gentle cupping. Almost more of a suction cup rather than a, if you’ve had cupping before, you know, like the pumping. It’s very gentle.

 But with both of them it’s very gentle techniques to try and move that fluid back up and encourage the body to open the watersheds. Which is basically our main hubs of our, our lymph nodes and where the lymph is flowing through to get everything pumping back up.

Especially in the pelvic region as things are growing, it puts pressure on these like lymph nodes and then makes it hard for the body to pump it back up. Same with circulation, which is why people get a lot of the varicose veins in their legs and little spider veins. Because it’s just a lot harder when you’re pregnant.

Super Tough.

Return and lymphatic return for everything to go back up. So what we’re doing really is like just manually kind of trying to the back up when, where the watersheds are. So kind of like opening those up to get everything just flowing nicely back to the heart.

A lot of people as well experience these in the face. So massage and facial cupping can help with that to help drain everything. So people that do get the swelling in the face can sometimes find they have like chronic sinus congestion during pregnancy as well, which massage can help train and move everything out, which is really nice.

The other thing that I recommend to every pregnant person is compression socks. I’m a certified compression fitter. There are a lot of RMTs that are chiropractors that are, but the compression socks are just helping to physically pump that lymphatic fluid and circulation back up to the heart.

So for someone, even just in general, that experiences a lot of swelling or achy legs, a lot of women just get that kind of restless legs because of our hormones and our lack of magnesium.

Oh, don’t get me started on the rant of magnesium, I use, a sleepy time spray before bed. And every so often we’ll use the powder in our shakes just to bump that up a little bit.

Totally. So massage and compression, everything. It just helps to kind of move everything back up. Trying to decrease salt and caffeine intake for pregnant people that have a lot of swelling, salt just contributes to it. So there is a lot that can be done to help manage the swelling.

Of course, if you’re third trimester in the summer, you’re probably going to have a hard go

Haha yes! I never used compression socks because both of my girls were due September six. I was pregnant all summer long and so compression socks were never, ever something that I thought of.

Totally.

But I’ve heard my girlfriend did use them. She said they did work wonders. So did getting a massage though, just because it honestly just helps get everything moving in you especially with having twins.

So there’s a lot more going on there. But the socks helped immensely, so I wouldn’t have thought of that. That’s a really good tip.

We’ve talked a lot about the benefits to reducing pain for mamas because let’s be honest, pregnancy is not always the epitome of awesome. Let’s touch on the benefits of massage for the baby. So what, what’s in it for the baby?

 

The Benefits Of Prenatal Massage For The Baby (30:17)

There’s actually been some really interesting studies done. So, when I say benefits to the baby, this is mostly coming from having regular abdominal massage while pregnant.

I always like to try and encourage people to try it at least once and let me work my magic. And then there’s some little techniques I can show people to do at home as well because it’s nice for people to bond with the baby.

But studies have shown that people who receive abdominal massage during pregnancy, it helps to calm the stress baby.

So that just sounds like it would feel amazing to be perfectly honest. On this big crazy tightening belly.

Exactly. I don’t think I’ve ever had one complaint about it. People tend to love it. It helps you breathe better.

But there was another study done that showed that babies who received like massage while they were in the womb from the belly had better apag scores when they were born. That’s a healthier baby.

Of course with the massage we’re increasing circulation and fluid flow to the baby. So it decreases some risks as well during labor and delivery because there’s just more adequate slow happening through the placenta to the baby.

And more nutrients I would think too.

Exactly. Uptake nutrients if you’re increasing the volume of flow. So it’s very, very interesting. As well for some people who maybe have anterior placenta, they might not be able to feel the baby as much.

So the abdominal massage, usually it gets them like kind of kick in a little bit because they’re like; “Whoa, what are you doing in my space?”.

So it can be nice for people as well to kind of have that connection with baby and for baby to feel them. It is nice and just kind of helps relax baby, because there’s not much that you can do to kind of connect with baby physically while they’re in the womb.

Yeah, aside from poking them. I totally poked them and they’d jump wherever I was touching so it was kind of fun.

Oh, I have, I’ve been kicked and head butted by babies through wombs. I have felt it all.

That’s awesome though. Those are my favorite parts was the kicking was always my favorite part of being pregnant.

Oh yeah. It’s so special.

 

How Often Should You Get A Prenatal Massage (32:50)

And so, you mentioned you’d recommend women if it’s possible to go once a week towards the end of their pregnancy for a prenatal massage, right?

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. And how long are the massages?

I do usually recommend at least 45 minutes. So it kind of depends what’s going on. I say typically I like to see people for an hour.

I always say it depends on, you know, financially what you’re able to do. But ideally an hour.

And that’s because with me, for a typical prenatal massage, I’ve always going to want to hit legs and feet on everybody. And that’s again, just because of swelling, venous return, I want to get everything pumping back up.

So having, you know, that extra 10, 15 minutes to work through that on everybody, it’s just really nice.

Right.

You don’t fall into a routine. Everybody’s different. But there’s those key things on every pregnant person that as an RMT I want to make sure I’m not neglecting.

Those are the spots that are always going to need more attention.

And now have you ever had anyone fall asleep during their pregnancy massage?

Oh, all the time. I’ve had people fall asleep during prenatal massage. I’ve had last week a mucus plug came out during our session.

Oh my God. Really? Okay. That’s hilarious.

I used to be the person that fell asleep during massages, um, until I switched to getting sports specific massages and you can not fall asleep during this that because it’s intense.

It’s very true.

So my pregnancy massages were pretty awesome.

Exactly. You just make them feel amazing. And it’s a nice balance of both relaxation and therapeutic work, right? Because with pregnancy massage, it’s important that we’re not stressing the nervous system, which is why we don’t do like that deep, deep work.

Because if that stressing the nervous system, the body says, okay, we need to bring attention to say this shoulder, not rather than we need to bring attention to the growing baby.

So that’s why it’s a kind of a, a careful mix during pregnancy. Massages of, you know, of course like with areas at the low back, we’re not going to use a ton of pressure just because of the baby that’s on the other side of things in there.

But it’s still okay to work deeper in the neck or other areas and just kind of have that balance of getting the deep work done. But then going back to our soothing and calming work that’s going to help decrease that fight or flight response in the body.

Because when the parent is in that rest and digest state, so is baby. And that’s ideal, especially for if you’re wanting to get a baby out of there, you’re relaxed, baby’s relaxed, things are going to move.

I still just can’t believe that trying to induce babies is done all in the feet. That blew my mind.

I didn’t realize the triggers down there, that’s kind of funny. But it also made sense as to why the old superstition of don’t get a pedicure in late stages of pregnancy because it will make you go into labor. And I was like, that’s why.

Yeah. And I always tell people too, it’s not like there’s like one magic button you press. Otherwise there’d be a line up out of our doors. Collectively stimulating those reflex points can really help.

Yeah, it was interesting. I found it really interesting and it’s relaxing. Who doesn’t love having their feet massaged and pressed on?

 

The Story Behind Elephant In The Womb (36:02)

It was kind of awesome. So one last question before I let you go here: How did you come up with the name for your business? Because it is awesome.

So for those of you who may not remember, because we’ve been chatting about a bunch of stuff, Victoria’s business is the elephant in the womb and it just, I don’t know. I really, I really love it.

It was a lot of brainstorming and kind of checking what URLs were available.

So actually my original idea was going to be womb service like room service, which was taken. And then I came up with the elephants in the womb and I was like, thank God I didn’t go for womb service because the elephant in the womb is so much cuter.

And I had a friend, a reflexologist, she has an art degree and she designed my logo, which is like a little pregnant person with a little elephant in the belly, like the baby box. It’s just so cute. It all works so well. And think my mom might help me a little bit. I remember some phone calls when I was in Windsor. Like, all right, we need to think of pregnancy puns.

It’s was perfect. It was one of my girlfriends who sent to me your way. And that was the first thing that just kind of captured my attention was it is a perfect name for what you do. Nicely done.

Thank you.

 

Wrap Up (37:36)

So, I think we’re going to wrap it up there. First of all, Victoria, thank you so much for coming on here today and chatting about all the awesomeness of massage as if we needed more reasons.

I’m telling you, I am very excited to have mine in a couple of days. So if you wanted to connect with Victoria, you can find her at https://www.thelephantinthewomb.net as well as on her Facebook and Instagram, the elephants in the womb.

 And of course I’m going to link to those in the show notes in case you have any further questions or if you’re local and want to book in for a massage.

Just head to the show notes and you will have all of that information. Once again, I can’t thank you all enough for listening. I’m loving having the ability to chat to so many amazing people about all the things I love. It truly is my dream job.

If you’re enjoying what you’re listening to, please subscribe, rate and share the podcast. Not only does this give helpful information to others who may not know where to find it, but it also helps me out too, so that I can keep providing you with more.

And remember, if you’re in need of fitness tips, workouts, and amazingly recipes, check out my website at www.fitasamamabearcom.

On that note, check back soon for the next episode of the fittest mama bear podcast. And if you took one lesson from today’s podcast, I truly hope that it’s a book and [inaudible] massage pregnant or not chat to friends.

 

Mentioned In The Podcast

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CMTO – Collage Of Massage Therapists
Kin Tape
Sleepy Time Spray

Magnesium

Organic Baby Skincare

Connect With Victoria

Website, Facebook, Instagram