Hi mumintraining

I had this in my first pregnancy from Week 28 and for 18 months afterwards. I've had it from Week 7 in this pregnancy. By the time this baby is born, I will have been in pain for 30 out of 36 months so you could say it has dominated my life in recent times.

Do look into the special child care benefit that Marydean mentioned - or if you PM me your address, I will send you some info that another BB member sent to me.

Do everything you can to manage this and wherever you can, DO NOT STRUGGLE THROUGH.

I'm an example of struggling through it the first time in the mistaken belief that it would all go away after the birth.

Recently I found some overseas literature that recommended chiros who practice The Webster Technique reporting great results with women going from being wheelchair bound to pain free. I've found one close to me but haven't had chance to see her yet. Maybe Google and see if you can find one in your area.

I've found that I really have to be vigilant. At 7 weeks I was told I would soon be in a wheelchair. I have had to use a wheelchair since Week 12 instead of walking but by managing the condition as best I can, I've avoided having to use the wheelchair around the house.

I ice 3 times a day. This is important to get the inflammation down. However, I found in my first pregnancy that it didn't work at all. I think it was already so bad that a bit of icing here and there did no good. You might try icing for virtually the whole day if you can get someone to watch DS. It's also important to lie down as much as possible. SItting down isn't the same, ,my physio tells me as it's still working the pelvis.

Is the physio you're doing clinical pilates? I've found this to be really good and I do it 1-2 times per week.

Check out the Pelvic Instability Association - I found it good for letting me know that I wasn't alone and there are also some good tips on there but unfortunately no online or IRL forum apart from meetings that take place in Melbourne. There are UK sites, however, where people chat and it's good to read what's on there.

As for the birth, it's a really personal decision. Most people recover well, they really do and alioops is a great example. I'm a great example of someone who 'did everything wrong' in my birth and ended up with a disastrous result.

The key things are that you need to weigh up the drug situation carefully, need to make your carers aware that you have the problem and how wide you can comfortably open your legs, need to be careful with the position you push in AND ensure that you don't push for too long.

I've been in a real quandary about how to manage my forthcoming birth and had a chat with my physio that made things much clearer for me. Basically, she said that labour doesn't hurt the pelvis but the pushing stage does. The pushing stage in my first labour was almost three hours with my knees bent back and wide open against my chest (which didn't hurt at the time because I'd had an epidural) and finally resulted in forceps. All bad. Which is why it took 18 months to recover.

She said that if I want to go for a vaginal birth that I must use a safer position and must specify to my ob/midwives to only let me push for 20 mins max.

I'm not sure how your first birth was but I would suggest that as in alioops' case that if you had a short pushing stage for your first child then it would definitely be worth going for the VB.

My physio said that usually they recommend that people DO go for the VB because it generally does take longer to recover from a caesar in any case. With a caesar, they cut through the muscle and the muscle is important in supporting the pelvis.

However, there is no chance with a caesar of further harming the pelvis as there is with a protracted pushing stage.

So, for me, given that I had a long pushing stage with my first child and the fact that I would have to trust my caregivers would follow my wishes and put a time limit on pushing, I have decided to go for an elective caesar. I just don't want to worry for the entire pregnancy or through labour that my wishes will be followed. My physio tells me that best case scenario is that the muscles will have recovered by week 3 and worst case a couple of months - which to me is a walk in the park compared to 18 months last time.

So now that I've whittered on about my stuff, I just want to reiterate to you that you need to get as much help as possible and you need to consider your own circumstances and your previous birth, no-one else's. Taking every step you can to manage it now (primarily by resting) and during the birth will give you the greatest chance of having a fantastic recovery - and most women do recover well from this so don't let my doom and gloom put you off!