Passing it off as some new MS symptom (it's dead easy to do that!) I left it a while but it got steadily worse. I obviously mentioned it to my midwife, who was a bit concerned by the numbness aspect. She thought it was likely to be SPD, but as someone who didn't know a great deal about MS, didn't want to rule out it being a symptom.
I eventually saw a consultant about it, who confirmed that it was SPD - Symphysis Pubis Dysfuntion. It was not pleasant, I can tell you that! SPD is when the ligaments in the pelvis soften, causing the pelvis to come apart a little too much. The process is meant to happen in pregnancy to obviously make your pelvis pliable for birth, but with SPD the body takes the process a little too far.
My aunt had also suffered from it with her pregnancies, and ended up on crutches, so being diagnosed with it obviously didn't do a lot to lighten my mood. I have a tendency to imagine the worse case scenario happening. However it's a lot more common than I thought, affecting roughly one in four women at some stage during pregnancy.
The pain would become intense in certain situations (such as standing, or walking, oh and sitting for a long period....so pretty much all the time!!) but I found ways to alleviate it, and I was given exercises by a physiotherapist to do at home. Bouncing on my birthing ball always helped, I suppose because it was something soft to sit on and the movement stopped me from stiffening up. The exercises I had to do at home involved small stretches, but I confess I didn't keep up with them as much as I should have. I'm not very good at motivating myself to exercise at home!
The most ineffective SPD support band....ever.
------- AFTER BIRTH ---------------------
My hips were worse right at the end of pregnancy (which is to be expected in any case) but once I had given birth to Lib it had pretty much disappeared within a couple of days. Such a relief!
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