I am full of questions

first, go slow. you will be using muscles that are not used to holding your body up. most of us have learned long ago to lean on our ligaments, so your muscles are likely to be tight and/or weak. resting when you need to is ok, even if its curling up on the couch (though you are right, its not a great position) once in a while. or even once a day. you need to still enjoy life!

my upper back ached alot in the beginning too. be sure that your shoulders are down and broad, and the back of your neck is long. I find that not only does my bum stick out more in this posture, but so do my boobs. which is a nice benefit for me, as even when bf I am of small boobage, lol. slumping forward to relieve the ache is ok, its a good stretch. I've always stretched my back by folding over and reaching forward, recently was told that what I'm doing is the 'child pose' or something like that in yoga. whatever it is it feels good. but then when you stand up, get back into the pulled up, lengthened posture.

there's been some discussion on sleeping positions, but I don't recall anyone really feeling strongly that any one sleeping position was harmful or 'better'. just get some good sleep!

and oh, sofas. not great. hard to sit well on one of those. by well, I mean with your pelvis tipped forward so the pelvic organs are where they should be. however, I do enjoy my sofa at the end of the day, I prop a pillow or two behind my back and sit cross legged.

Hi A

Re posture. Yes, it is for ever. It is now my major hobby and an investment in my active future. However after an initial adjustment period it will not be painful as long as you are doing it right. I have been doing it for three years, and am finally conquering the lower back pain and learning to relax my belly. Christine has amended the way she describes the posture several times to attempt to try and iron out the sort of problems you are experiencing.

Every woman is different in the way she carries herself. I find that the important things are the visualisations of imagining myself hanging from a string attached to the crown of my head and relaxing my spine downwards so I can imagine my feet gently flat on the ground. My knees are ever so slightly flexed and my pelvis tilts forward slightly, pulled that way by my relaxed lower belly (as in the way a tall softdrink bottle rests upright against the side of a suspended bucket and tips the bucket forwards slightly with its weight). My shoulders are relaxed and slightly forward, my lumbar curve is large and gentle, and my thoracic and cervical curves are straightened slightly. This lifts the bottom of my breastbone and my boobs stick out further all by themselves. Magic eh? My relaxed belly drops so it looks vertical from the side even though I am overweight, and the weight of my pelvic organs sits on my pubic bone, not on my vagina.

Your existing postural patterns may be different from mine, so you may need to make different adjustments. eg I have never been a sloucher so straightening my shoulders was not a problem, just the lower body muscles.

Once you get it right it is effortless (painfree) but very powerful, as I am no longer fearful about damaging my prolapses further by heavy lifting and physical work because I can feel my pelvis locking into place under load and keeping my organs inside me as I move. I have just spent the weekend demolishing a small hardwood timber pergola by myself, and shifted equivalent of a pack of housebricks to make path edges in my garden. (It is spring in Australia.) I just did it all mindfully, carefully and slowly without my husband pushing me faster and further than I could comfortably go, and wearing clothing that was loose around my belly so I could really relax it and keep my pelvic organs well forward during lifting and physical straining. I have also been doing heavy weeding on hands and knees for the last couple of weeks. I was amazed at how well the body responded. Some serious fatigue at the end of the day and some muscle soreness but all organs still firmly inside.

The pain problem I had when I started using this posture was related to using my abdominal muscles, gluteal muscles, hamstrings and back muscles for posture. I was not using all the little muscles between the spine, sacrum, femur and pelvic bones at all, so they had become very weak. You will read about all these muscles in the 2nd edition of Saving the Wholewoman. I am beginning to wake these other muscles up now with Feldenkrais and the ballet workout and am feeling much less wobbly at the bottom of my torso. I also had to unlearn using these other major muscle groups and to stop my back muscles spasming constantly and causing other muscles to spasm to balance it up. Very painful. Now I can use all of them.

Re the sofa, of course you can curl up on the sofa as long as your pelvis is not tilted backwards, pushing your pelvic organs towards your vulva, and you still have a lumbar curve when you are sitting vertically. I have come to the conclusion that what you do when you are horizontal makes not a scrap of difference to prolapses, except situps.

As you become mindful of the way intraabdominal forces exert pressure on your body you will work out for yourself what you can and can't do. I no longer lean against chair backs, feeling much more comfortable upright and forward. My office stair is a stool. I have a small lumbar support pillow in my car hanging from the correct height by an adjustable strap. It goes with me whenever I travel, whether by plane, car, bus or train, so I can be comfortable seated for long periods anywhere. Yesterday it was a 10 hour car trip as a passenger in my son's car to a job interview down south.

Good luck as you embark on this exciting adventure of discovering what your body can do to overcome its functional difficulties, though it cannot repair the damage.

Cheers

Louise

I have a strange solution to the sofa problem. I got into MMORPGs (online roleplaying games) and ironically, it has been one of the best things for my health. My TV watching and sofa sitting went to zero and was replaced by sitting with proper posture at the computer. It's still not good to sit for many hours but at least I'm sitting correctly most of the time, instead of being slouched on the sofa. My low back pain is much improved and my overall happiness level has risen dramatically. Games are mentally interactive... TV is passive.

The rare times I do sit on the sofa, I use a lot of pillows to support my low back and keep the proper curvature so that I NEVER bend it round the wrong way anymore, or I just lie down... but that usually puts me to sleep. :(

To answer your question about sleeping, I sleep on my side in the fetal position but with the knees not so drawn up my back is rounded. I use three pillows; one for my head (it is the shaped foam kind that has neck support), one between my knees and one to hug, to support my arm. When my low back pain flares I also place a small throw pillow under my side to keep my spine straight.