Why parenting is an extreme sport – with injuries to match

Before becoming a parent, you receive lots of well-meaning warnings. “You’ll be tired” or “You’ll be busy.”

The warning they forget: you’ll get injured.

Every parent I know has a tale of orthopaedic woe – of tweaking her back when trying to carry toddlers or breaking his foot while rushing to a crying child in the night, or simply straining their hands from nonstop scrubbing of baby bottles.

Having a baby comes with various physical challenges, including weight lifting.Credit: Getty Images

New mothers are particularly vulnerable because of the physical trauma associated with pregnancy and the caregiving burdens that tend to fall on them, including breastfeeding. But even minor nagging pains can become years-long problems, in part because new parents rarely prioritise rehab and recovery, and they are often sleep-deprived and overstressed.

“People care more about their children than they do themselves,” Kola Jegede, a New York University spinal surgeon says. He and other experts urged prompt treatment for injuries, as well as “prehab”, such as core-muscle training before a child arrives. “This is a sport that you have to be prepared for.”

I want to be clear: I love being a parent, and I adore my two children. But I don’t love limping around after them. So as I scoured for research and recommendations recently – frustrated as my paternity leave has spiralled into trips to the local orthopaedist, as one small injury inevitably led to another – I was surprised by the lack of media coverage or even data on a problem that every parent seems to face.

Some of that is because it’s an unmonitored issue. There are medical-billing codes intended to capture all manner of injuries – even including being struck by a turtle or a spacecraft – which allow health insurers and researchers to tally cases. But there’s nothing that measures if you’ve been “struck by a toddler” or otherwise injured from childcare, and several health-data experts told me they didn’t know how to begin capturing it.

“It’s one of those patient populations that’s overlooked because everybody has kids,” Jordan Miller, a physical therapist at Athletico, an American nationwide chain of rehab centres.

Caregiving contortions

In theory, parenting could make for a well-designed workout because a child’s weight and activity levels steadily increase. A 2.7 kilogram newborn becomes a 5.5 kilogram baby and an 11 kilogram toddler. Pushing an infant in a stroller gives way to chasing that child at a park.

In reality, as children treat their parents’ bodies like jungle gyms – yanking on arms, jumping on backs – injuries quickly follow, often concentrated in a few places. Friends have told me about developing tennis or golf elbow, not because they played the sports, but because of carrying their children or scrubbing bottles and breast-pump parts.

“In my practice, back, neck, shoulder, wrist are the most common” injuries among parents of young children, says Cody Mansfield, a physical therapist at Ohio State University.

Some of these strains may be exacerbated by societal pressures and demographic changes. Parents spend much more time with their children today than decades ago, increasing the number of interactions. Mums and dads can be juggling always-on jobs that leave them worn down and vulnerable, even as community and family supports have weakened.

First-time parents also are now older – the average age of a first-time mum has risen to nearly 30 years old, compared with about 21 years old in 1970, according to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention data. And a 33-year-old parent of a toddler may have more orthopaedic problems than her 24-year-old counterpart.

Sore backs, necks and shoulders are common among new parents.Credit: Getty Images

It’s “the same way any athlete is going to have maybe a higher risk of injury, the older they get. Or just aches and pains, the older they get,” Miller says. “Because really, raising a child is just like being an athlete.”

Some parental injuries have obvious clinical causes. Miller, who leads Athletico’s program to help new parents recover their physical health, points to diastasis recti, a frequent condition when a pregnant person’s abdominal muscles separate. The condition is linked to months of problems after giving birth, including a mother’s inability to safely lift her child and urinary incontinence.

“Those kinds of things are going to keep our new parent from being able to take care of their kids and take care of their own bodies,” Miller says.

Seemingly no parent is protected. As I canvassed for comment, I heard tales of injured athletic royalty – an NFL player who needed rehab after his toddler jumped on him – and everyday accidents, perhaps none flukier than a story shared by my colleague Meghan Hoyer.

“I dislocated my pinky toe last year hitting it against a doorframe while playing ‘indoor snowball fight’ with my kid, needed surgery to repair this, post-surgery travelled against my doctor’s orders and ended up snagged in a hotel carpet caught by my surgical pin, and that required maintenance to break down the door and cut me out of the floor. … And then I ended up on house rest for nearly two months and literally am still seeing my [orthopaedist] for this nine months later,” Meghan wrote in a message, later sharing a photo of being cut out of the hotel carpet.

Training tips for parents

Torn muscles and broken bones remain a small price to pay for the joy of having children. But that doesn’t mean we have to grit our teeth and bear it.

Here’s the advice I’ve gleaned after two kids, multiple doctors’ appointments and numerous interviews.

If you no longer have time for the gym, short workouts at home can help make you less susceptible to injury.Credit: iStock

Build core strength whenever you can. Experts recommended a variety of exercises – weight-training, yoga, Pilates, swimming, biking – to strengthen necks, backs, shoulders and trunks.

Focus on proper form. Mansfield’s colleagues at Ohio State prepared videos that demonstrate how to lift a child, pick up a car seat and complete other tasks often associated with repetitive-strain injuries.

Don’t bend if you don’t need to. Jegede, a parent of two young children, said he developed a technique to combat his own back pain: sitting down on the ground next to a stroller to strap his children in, rather than attempting to bend over from a standing position.

Do a bag check. Jegede also recommended a minimalist approach to how parents pack and what they carry.

Slow down. Experts agreed that many injuries come from rushing – of trying to carry too many things between a house and a car, for instance. Better to make two trips now than one trip now and a trip to a doctor later.

Clear a path. This was a hard-won lesson after I broke my toe in the middle of the night. Every evening, we now spend a few minutes picking up toys and clearing the floor. It’s helped reduce painful missteps when rushing through a dark house to attend to a crying child.

Break up workouts – or rethink them. Those 90-minute gym trips may be on hold, but a 20-minute workout at your house doesn’t need to be. Several experts recommended seeking out other ways to stay active, such as converting drinks with a friend into a brisk walk instead.

Use it before you lose it. Forgoing your fitness for the sake of your young children may seem noble, but it can complicate later efforts to do activities with them.

Don’t tough it out. If you’re hurting, find time to get a check-up. Without treatment, “it gets worse before it gets better”, Miller says.

The Washington Post

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