Installment #2 of Old Mom Problems

The Saga Unfolds: Spine Compression and “Mommy Thumb”

Hello, dear readers. If you haven’t read Installment #1, let me catch you up with a two-sentence summary:

Old moms are a growing demographic and we’ve got it going on — we tend to feel more ready for old mom-hood, we’re happier, better educated, and — bonus — we earn more on average than our younger counterparts. But old mom/parent problems are a real thing.

Let me set the scene: People tried to warn us. They gave us advice:

Figure 2. How to correctly carry your infant car seat. (Or, just buy a convertible car seat. You’ll need one eventually, anyway.)

But my spouse and I didn’t think much of it. We had just accomplished this amazing feat—pregnancy and birth — and we felt capable of anything.

Figure 3. Pregnancy and birth are Olympic events. And we got a medal: Look at that golden baby!

But the Olympics wasn’t over. As it turns out, after the birth, you’ve got a newborn. It shouldn’t be a surprise…but the physicality of it is, a little bit.

Fourth trimester realness: Your baby wants to be held all the time. And, we fell in love — we’d do anything for that baby.

Figure 4. Snuggly a baby is amazing, but sometime my body felt like this.

Like parents everywhere, we rocked, walked, and bounced to comfort our baby. This is what Homo sapiens babies want, even easy-going ones like ours.

Figure 5. Rocking, walking, bouncing.

We figured out what worked for our baby.

Figure 6. Our baby enjoyed this immensely; my spouse’s back — not so much.

Our baby liked bouncing. It was magic — one minute the baby was crying, then bounce, bounce, bounce, and the baby was cooing. So my spouse did it a lot, until one day…

Figure 7. “Ouch!”

My spouse: “Every time I bounce the baby on the yoga ball, it hurts my back.”

Chiropractor: “That’s because you’re compressing your spine. Stop bouncing.”

My spouse: “But that’s my strategy. My wife has the boobs and I bounce.”

Chiropractor: “Not anymore you don’t.”

This was the start of a parade of injuries for both of us.

Love made us push ourselves to the limit. We’d dreamt of a baby for so long — and when our baby arrived, we were 100% in. I absolutely loved holding our baby, so I thought, “Bring it on! I’ve got this!”

I’d run marathons (okay, okay, admittedly, that was in my younger years), so I felt prepared for anything. But the physicality of parenting a newborn gives marathoning — a one-time event with a discreet end — a run for its money.

We continued to do lots of reps with our baby barbell. And just when the reps got easier, the pounds increased.

Figure 8. This is why baby carriers rock. I recommend buying one with good lumbar support.

You can probably guess where this is going. Yep. Baby boot camp led to a repetitive strain injury. Tendonitis. A little pain in my thumb and wrist, aggravated again and again.

Tendonitis, also known as De Quervain’s Disease, is commonly — and appropriately — called mommy’s thumb. And, oh yeah, being female and of “advancing age” are risk factors. One research study refers to it as “baby’s wrist,” and in fact, two of the three participants in that study were old moms! Heck, a case study detailing the array of treatment options focuses on someone who lifts and snuggles babies on the daily: a daycare worker.

A recent study identified a genetic marker for tendonitis — useful, the researchers say, to “inform athletes and other high-risk individuals [edited by me to add: a.k.a., new old moms] about their relative risk for the injury.” Perhaps this will be an optional test for pregnant old moms one day.

Tendonitis affected my life in assorted unpleasant ways…

Figure 9. Tendonitis impacted my everyday activities.

…it hurt to wipe (need I say more); it hurt to scroll — something I did a lot of while trapped under a napping baby — plus, I had approximately 2,000 photos of my adorable baby to gaze at; and it hurt to hold a coffee mug, among other everyday activities. But I beat tendonitis…or, at least, I managed it.

Next up: We delve deep into the mother of all injuries…a real persistent m*****f*****.

Previously:

“In fact, sometimes we ‘evoked a feeling a dread and foreboding’ in (presumed male) doctors.”