Kinesiology Tape During Pregnancy

What's with that cool tape?

Kinesiology Tape (KT) has been making headlines since athletes have been highlighting their brightly-coloured sport supports during the Olympics and other major games.  What could possibly be a more impressive physical feat than taking 9 months to completely overhaul your physique and prepare for "the main event"?  That "main event" being bringing a person into this world and that "preparation" including the building of said person from scratch... that's pretty intense and certainly meets my criteria to treat someone like an athlete.

How does it work?

In the simplest of terms, the tape helps "turn up the volume" of communication between the area you are taping and your brain.  (In much less simple terms, a current working theory is the stimulation of unmyelinated tactile afferents to the insular cortex... same difference.)   When we improve that brain-body communication, we enhance sensorimotor integration and feedback.  This helps improve muscle tone and stamina and has a mild pain-gating effect.

There are other uses of the tape, depending on how it is applied, that can support lymphatic drainage and other cool party tricks, but for our purposes today, we'll focus on the common usage. 

Why does that matter?

During pregnancy, the demands on your muscle stamina and motor control are exaggerated, to say the least.  By enhancing the feedback from your body to your brain, we can help you move better, feel, better, and stand taller.  This allows you to get on with your life more comfortably and can help you focus on taking care of yourself by staying active without pain as a barrier.  So many of the discomforts during pregnancy are due to the changing biomechanical demands of your morphing body; both the changes themselves (such as increased ligament laxity, weight gain, and centre of gravity shifts), as well as the compensation to those changes (such as muscle tension, sway back, and joint shearing) can be supported depending on the taping technique being used.

What can it help with?

Depending on the kinesiology taping application, there is a very wide range of issues that can be supported during pregnancy.  Some of the more common ones we work with in office include:

  • Low Back Pain
  • Sacroilitis (SI joint & sacral pain)
  • Sciatica
  • Mid Back Pain (including postural tension)
  • Rib Pain
  • Uterine Ligament Sprains & Pulls
  • Pubic Symphysis Pain
  • Diastasis Recti
  • Ankle Swelling
  • Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Yeah... there is a lot going on during pregnancy...

How do you use it?

In our office, we use RockTape Kinesiology Tape (because they are a really cool company and their tape stays on better all the other brands we have tested).  We use the tape in conjunction with other treatment modalities, including Webster Chiropractic Technique and exercise rehab prescription. We have found that this combo helps moms feel awesome and empowered to keep rocking the show as they build a tiny person inside their incredible bodies.  It's a pretty sweet job and we are thrilled to do it.  🙂

Kinesiology Tape - Pregnant Belly
Rock Tape - Ribs Pregnancy
Kinesiology Tape - Ankle Swelling
Rock Tape - Diastases Recti
Rock Tape - Pregnancy

About Amanda Stevens

Dr Amanda Stevens is a chiropractor and clinical nutritionist whose practice focuses entirely on paediatric and maternity care. She works with families through pregnancy and onward to infancy and childhood. She is passionate about thriving early development and a uses a multimodal approach for problem-solving and wellness care that is specific to each patient that walks through the door.

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