If you’ve ever caught a glimpse of yourself in a window while carrying your kid, a backpack, a bag of groceries, and their half-finished craft from school… you may have had a moment of, “Wait, why am I shaped like this now?”
You’re not imagining it. Mom posture is real.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It sneaks up on you the same way the Lego pieces do, quietly, persistently, and with a surprising amount of pain. One day you’re lifting a newborn with perfect form, and the next you’re hunched over trying to buckle a car seat while your back screams like you’re 112 years old.
And then the headaches begin. And the shoulder tightness. And the random twinges you swear did not exist before motherhood. Suddenly the simple act of turning your head feels like it should come with a sound effect.
So what’s going on?
It turns out that years of scooping toddlers into car seats, lugging strollers up steps, leaning over cribs, carrying kids on one hip, and sitting with an iPad balanced on your knee (for “just 10 minutes”) eventually take a toll. Not in a dramatic way, just little micro-adjustments your body keeps making until your posture quietly collapses into a shape best described as “tired parent question mark.”
Here’s the part many moms don’t realize: posture isn’t just about how you look. It’s woven into how you feel. Your breathing, your energy levels, your headaches, your lower-back drama, the weird tightness between your shoulder blades, all of it can be tied to posture.
Which brings me to physiotherapy.
I know, I know. Adding one more appointment to a mom’s schedule is like volunteering to run a marathon while juggling snacks and water bottles. But hear me out, physio is one of those things that pays you back almost immediately.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with Sumeet Brar, owner of the Wellness Centre Ignite Health Clinic in Brampton, which offers physiotherapy among other services. She told me something that stuck: most moms come in believing their pain is just part of the mom experience, like the stretch marks or the permanent dark circles. They assume nothing can be done.
Then they get assessed, and it turns out the issue isn’t “just motherhood.” It’s tight chest muscles from years of hunching. Or underactive back muscles. Or a core that never fully re-engaged after pregnancy. Or a neck that’s been compensating for months of looking down at kids, phones, and laundry baskets.
In other words: it’s fixable.
And honestly? That’s kind of hopeful.
Sumeet explained that physiotherapy isn’t about forcing you to do 45-minute workouts or expecting you to change your whole lifestyle. Most moms don’t have that kind of time or energy. Instead, it’s about giving your body a reset.
A little bit of hands-on work to release the tension. A couple of simple exercises that wake up the muscles you forgot you had. Some tweaks to the way you sit, stand, lift, or carry your mini humans. And gradually, you start to feel… less broken.
One mom Sumeet treated told her that the biggest difference wasn’t even the pain relief, it was the feeling of being able to move again. Like she could twist to look behind her without her spine filing a complaint.
Another realized her “always tired” feeling was partly because her posture was compressing her breathing. Once she learned how to open up her chest and strengthen her upper back, she suddenly felt like she’d upgraded her lungs.
What I love about physiotherapy for moms is that it meets you where you are. There’s no guilt. No “you should have started this years ago.” No unrealistic expectations. Just someone helping your body remember its own blueprint.
A good physiotherapist will look at how you move during your actual day, not how you move in a gym. If your daily workout consists of lifting a squirming toddler or hauling a stroller in and out of the trunk, they’ll focus on helping you do that without messing up your spine.
And the best part? You don’t need to become a fitness influencer to feel better. The exercises are usually small, slow, and incredibly effective. Five minutes a day. Sometimes less. Something you can squeeze in between snacks and bedtime stories.
Little by little, the headaches get fewer. The shoulders stop feeling like boulders. You stand a little taller. Your back doesn’t quit on you at 3 p.m. It’s not magic, it’s just giving your body the chance to function the way it was meant to, before life turned into a nonstop juggling act.
Here’s the takeaway that I think every mom needs to hear: You don’t have to accept pain as the price of motherhood.
You don’t have to live with the constant neck stiffness or the ache between your shoulder blades or the low-back pain that flares up every time you lift a kid who “doesn’t want to walk today.”
If your posture has slowly drifted into the land of the permanently slumped, you’re not alone, and you’re definitely not stuck.
Physiotherapy won’t give you more hours in the day, but it will make the hours you do have feel a lot less painful. And honestly? That’s a win every mom deserves.
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