5 Fixes for Groin Pain During Pregnancy

Is your groin (meaning in between your thighs and even into your middle-pelvis) hurting during pregnancy. Today I’m going to give you 5 fixes for it and some other things to consider as your body just manages all these crazy changes.

I have to say that I 100% understand how MISERABLE this is. It really affected my life for YEARS because I didn’t get the help I needed (even as a labor nurse). I have explored a LOT about what can help — so I’m excited to give you some options.

I have a quick download for some tips that you might find helpful:

I also want to say that there are SEVERAL causes for groin pain in pregnancy:

• Bladder infections (if it includes ANY symptoms around peeing please talk with your provider ASAP, they can cause preterm labor)
• Symphysis pubis dysfunction (meaning where your pelvis is splitting)
• Compensation by other muscles in compensation for pelvic changes

It’s really important to understand WHY yours is happening (or, if it’s a combination of things). A few of the things I’m going to talk about will address some of that as well, so let’s get going.

Talk With Your Provider

This can feel daunting. Providers need to know what type of help you’re wanting:

• Are you wanting to know if it’s NORMAL -or-
• Are you wanting it FIXED?

Some people just worry something is wrong with some of the aches/pains of pregnancy and once they know they’re not BAD they’re able to move on easily.

However, if the pain is affecting the function of your life your provider should be helpful. This can include:

• A thorough assessment of the area and your movement
• Some stretches to try at home
• Possibly recommend some device to wear or use to help (be it a band, pillow, etc)
• A consult with physical therapy if they feel like fixing it is beyond them.

It’s important to remember it is NOT your OB or Midwife’s job to fix stuff all over the body during pregnancy, so referring out is of the most helpful thing they can do!

If your provider gives you — that’s just part of pregnancy — that’s not OK. They should be willing to work to address the issue like I talked about above.

That isn’t to say that they can FIX This pain. They should at least be willing to try or refer you out if it’s beyond their skills.

Feeling like talking with your provider is tough — I have some provider tips that might help right here:

Of course, I would hope that your provider/physical therapy would recommend these next few things, but let me give you an overview of what most people often find helps:

Light Heat

Some light heat might help. Your muscles are really compensating for your expanding belly and how things are shifting in your pelvic area.

You never want to put heat directly on your belly, light or otherwise however light heat can be helpful especially between your legs or on the outside, or in your butt area.

I have a few posts you might find helpful in this area:

• Using a Heating Pad While Pregnant: Can you use it on your stomach?
• Can You Use a Microwave Heat Pack While Pregnant
• Can You Use A Heating Pad While Pregnant?

SI Joint Band or Maternity Belt

These are “belts” you wear either under your belly, or over hips (depending on your issue). If this is your problem, I’d definitely ask your provider if they thing one or the other would work for you.

For me, my pelvis felt so weak “because it was splitting” the SI belt sort of helped hold it together. I found it to be extra helpful when I had looser pants on (like scrubs in the hospital).

I have a few posts on this too:

• How To Wear A Pregnancy Belly Band
• What Does Round Ligament Pain Feel Like
• Belly Straps For Pregnancy: Finding The Right One For You!

(that last post includes using kinesiology tape which has proven to be helpful in some instances too)

Pillows for Sleep

We’re sleeping for a good part of our day, and if you’re doing it wrong it can really affect your body (check out this post on getting better pregnancy sleep if that’s an issue for you).

Using a pillow between your thighs can really help hip pain.

Using a pillow under your belly can also sometimes help some of the stretching feeling in your hips as well.

A lot of people like yo use a pregnancy pillow, but you can also just use a variety of pillows you already have. This is a great time for partners to help out!

Partners can actually help out a LOT — but often you and them are both clueless as to what they could do to help. You sort of feel overwhelmed by the pain so coming up with ideas for them just feels like extra work.

I talk a LOT about what partners can do to help out both during pregnancy & labor/birth in here. I think you’ll both find it super helpful.

Stretching

Stretching can be super helpful. There are some pretty generic stretches during pregnancy that can help a variety of conditions (it would be awesome if your provider gave you some of those to work on). However, they can also hurt other conditions….

There are a lot of great youtube videos on pregnancy stretching that you could try out.

If the generic stretches aren’t enough I can’t emphasize any more how much either a chiropractor or a physical therapist can be.

A physical therapist can:

• Really help diagnose your PHYSICAL problem to help you!
• Give you stretches that can help that problem and make sure you’re doing them right
• Do other things (like cupping, heat, adjustments, massage, acupuncture even — called “dry needling”) to help your issue
• Talk about your activities of daily living and what you could be doing to make it worse, and how to adjust those movements to have less pain
• Follow-up to see what you can do to strengthen the muscles you have and see as things change through your pregnancy

Recently, I had a back issue and really didn’t want to take the time (or spend the money) to go to PT. In just one session she pin-pointed my problem. Gave me some stretches and some things to do with lacrosse balls to fix it. I diligently did them at home and within 5 days I was feeling 90% better. I had suffered with it 3 weeks before I saw her. I am dumb, don’t be like me. It took one visit. That’s it.

Also, PT is often more easily-covered under insurance.

A chiropractor can do very similar things, but providers tend to be hesitant to recommend them because:

• Many like to practice outside their scope of the human body and recommend other things for your pregnancy which can be harmful
• Have you come back over, and over, and over — they often see patients as a cash cow vs something to be fixed
• They don’t often give you as much work to do at home because they’d rather you come into the office and they do the work (this is tough with all the appointments you already have in pregnancy)

Honestly, I’ve seen benefits to both. I’ve actually seen a LOT of good things from a chiropractor for breech babies (see my most on getting babies to flip).

Talk with your provider and see what they say. If they have a chiropractor that a lot of patients have found luck with — that is a GREAT sign!

I should also say that I was a HUGE fan of prenatal yoga with my last baby. But, I wish I had talked with a good physical therapist to find out what exercises were actually hurting me overall. Stretching can feel great, but it may be exacerbating a problem you have.

Pain Meds?

A lot of people want pain meds for this pain — and while they can be used at times to be helpful (really depending on you, your needs and how far along you are). I would really recommend trying all the other things before going to pain meds.

Most often things are causing it — and if you fix those you won’t need the pain meds which could ultimately be very problematic.

So, there’s 5 fixes for groin pain in pregnancy. I hope you found them helpful.

Most importantly, you need to learn to talk with providers about getting what you need — rather than things that can be resolved quickly in the office. Sometimes that is tricky, however good providers really DO want to help but the more you can:

• Describe what hurts
• What you’ve tried and if it’s worked at all
• What exactly the pain feels like

The better you can both work together to find a solution.

Honestly, this problem extends into labor also. So often people talk about taking a birth class to mange pain during labor (which is important) — but learning to talk with your entire your birth team to get the best advice, help and ultimately the room to make your own choices can be the MOST important thing to learn about birth.

I recommend The Online Prenatal Class for Couples — we talk about doing that, and I give you real life scripts that you can adjust to make work for you. It makes it SO easy.

I will say that sometimes people are thrown-off by what we do in the hospital to help you. Just like groin pain — where they might recommend a belt for your hips — in labor you may have 3 nurses run in your room and start helping you to turn.

That can be really overwhelming, until you understand that your safety, and doing things quickly is a priority of all the nurses on the floor — you start to understand that you’re in safe hands (and not being tortured). We talk about interventions like that in that class as well. I don’t want you to be caught off-guard by anything!

Want to do a vibe check before diving into the whole thing with me? — check out my free labor pro tips. It’s your first step toward getting in the driver’s seat of your birth.