Why your feet hurt after having a baby (and what actually helps)

By Your Health Magazine Contributor

Your Health Magazine Contributor

. https://YourHealthMagazine.net

More Podiatry Foot Care Articles

Why your feet hurt after having a baby (and what actually helps)

Sore feet after having a baby surprise a lot of new mothers. You braced for the broken sleep and the back twinges. Heel pain every time you stand up, or an ache through the arch after one short walk around the block, tends to arrive without warning. It is one of the more common foot complaints we see in women during the first year after birth, and there is a physical reason for it.

What pregnancy does to the arch

Two things happen at once during pregnancy, and both work on the same part of the foot.

The first is weight. Most women gain somewhere between 11 and 16 kilograms, and that load lands on two small platforms of bone and soft tissue that were never built for a sudden increase. Think of the arch as a spring. It flattens under load and recoils, thousands of times a day. Add weight quickly and it flattens a little further with every step.

The second is a hormone called relaxin. Its job is to soften the ligaments around the pelvis so the body can make room for a growing baby and, later, a birth. Relaxin does not travel only to the pelvis. It loosens ligaments right through the body, including the ones that hold the bones of the foot in their arched shape. Looser ligaments mean a less stable arch, and a less stable arch sits lower and spreads wider.

Put the two together and the arch drops. Plenty of women notice their feet feel longer or wider during pregnancy, and that shoes which fit in the first trimester start to pinch by the third. Swelling is only part of it. In some women the arch height decreases for good, which is why a shoe size can stay up half a size once the baby has arrived.

Why the pain often outlasts the birth

Here is the part that catches people off guard. You would reasonably expect your feet to bounce back once the weight comes off. Often they do not, at least not straight away.

Relaxin can stay elevated for months while a mother is breastfeeding. So the ligament laxity that lowered the arch during pregnancy does not always reverse the moment the baby arrives, and the extra load on a flatter foot keeps straining the plantar fascia. That fascia is the thick band of tissue running along the sole, from the heel to the ball of the foot. When the arch drops, the band is pulled taut and overstretched with every step. Where it anchors at the heel, it starts to complain.

This is plantar fasciitis, the single most common cause of heel pain we treat. It also explains the pattern new mothers describe. The pain is sharp in the heel on the first few steps in the morning or after sitting to feed. It eases once you get moving, then returns as a dull ache after a day of carrying a baby around the house.

What it feels like

A few signs point to a dropped arch rather than a passing niggle. Early-morning heel pain that stabs on the first few steps is the classic one. So is an ache along the inside arch after standing or walking. Some women feel it more on one side, usually the side they favour when they hold the baby on a hip. Tight calves are common too, because a flatter foot changes the angle at the ankle and the calf muscles shorten to compensate.

If the pain has been there for six weeks or more, rather than a day or two, take it seriously. Tissue that is strained every day does not get the rest it needs to settle when you are on your feet with a newborn.

What new mothers can do about it

The good news: this responds well to treatment, and most of the early steps you can start at home.

Supportive footwear is where a podiatrist usually begins. Swap the flat slippers and bare feet on hard floors for shoes with a firm heel counter and real arch support, and wear them indoors as well. Add calf stretches against a wall each day, and roll the sole of the foot over a chilled bottle for a minute at a time. None of that is dramatic. It takes load off the plantar fascia at the exact points where it is straining. Custom orthotics can go further, holding a collapsed arch in a corrected position while the soft tissue recovers.

Clinics that focus on foot health, such as Perth-based Midland Podiatry, note that managing persistent heel and arch pain after birth usually starts with assessing how far the arch has dropped and supporting it, rather than waiting for the discomfort to fade on its own. Midland Podiatry is a clinic in Perth’s eastern suburbs, with a team that has more than 30 years of combined experience treating plantar fasciitis and other causes of heel and arch pain. Their approach treats the cause rather than only the symptom. Orthotic therapy holds the arch, while shockwave therapy and foot mobilisation work on the strained tissue.

An assessment answers the question you cannot answer at home. How far has the arch actually dropped, and does it need short-term support while it recovers or longer-term correction? Strengthening the small muscles that support the arch helps hold whatever ground you gain. Not every mother needs every one of these, and a good clinician will tell you which steps your feet actually require.

When to have it looked at

If the pain is still there two to three months after birth, or getting worse rather than better, book an assessment rather than waiting it out. Persistent plantar fasciitis is far easier to settle early than after a year of walking on it. And if you are breastfeeding and wondering whether it is worth starting now: it is. Supporting the arch does not depend on relaxin having cleared your system. It takes the strain off while your ligaments slowly firm back up.

Your feet carried you through a pregnancy and are now carrying you and a baby. A little attention to the arch, early, is usually all it takes to get them comfortable again.