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Lifting your child out of the crib
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Loving Nana posted a great question the other day on this site. She stated that she often times has pain in her back whenever she lifts her grandchildren, especially out of the crib. This is a great question and one that I deal with on a regular basis in my office. This question can apply to many things other than lifting children, just lifting in general.
It is very common for new mothers and fathers to present to my office with upper low back pain. Now i
f you are thinking this is obvious, they have pain in their low back from bending to pick up their new baby. You are partially correct. Whenever we bend forward to pick up anything, whether it be a beautiful new baby, or a box out of your trunk, you are changing your center of gravity and creating more work for your body. The physics behind this are kind of wordy, but basically by reaching out from your body to lift an object, you are creating a longer lever arm which exponentially increases the load. Basically the further you reach from your body to lift something the heavier it gets. The baby may only way 8 pounds 6 ounces, but if you are lifting it up from the crib at a full bend at the waist and your arms completely extended, it may be more like 40 pounds of force.
f you are thinking this is obvious, they have pain in their low back from bending to pick up their new baby. You are partially correct. Whenever we bend forward to pick up anything, whether it be a beautiful new baby, or a box out of your trunk, you are changing your center of gravity and creating more work for your body. The physics behind this are kind of wordy, but basically by reaching out from your body to lift an object, you are creating a longer lever arm which exponentially increases the load. Basically the further you reach from your body to lift something the heavier it gets. The baby may only way 8 pounds 6 ounces, but if you are lifting it up from the crib at a full bend at the waist and your arms completely extended, it may be more like 40 pounds of force. The same principle can apply to lifting older children off of the ground. Bending at the waist and lifting a four year old (who ways more than an infant obviously,) can be very dangerous. With larger children, not in a crib, the old "bend at the knees, not at the waist" adage holds true. However; since you usually cannot bend at the knees to pick up a baby out of a crib, there needs to be a new solution.
The problem usually corrects itself with new mothers and fathers, however; it usually does not for grandparents. The reason is that parents are there all the time to pick up their newborn, grandparents don't get to build the muscle from the repetitive work of lifting the baby. So to combat that, grandparents have to do a little work when the baby isn't around. To build up the muscles that get sore whenever you lift your grandchild out of the crib, try putting a gallon of milk in the crib and lifting it out a few times a day, or a bottle of detergent. This will help build up the muscles in your low back that contract whenever you bend way down to get the baby out of the crib.
The other alternative is to make good friends with your local chiropractor. The bending and lifting can cause your vertebra to misalign, in which case a chiropractic adjustment is exactly what is called for. Some light stretching can also improve the stiffness and soreness that is associated with picking up the little bundle of joy. I hope this answers your question NANA, if I left something out of you would like more information, just ask at the bottom. Thanks for reading!
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