De Quervain's Tendonitis

Babies bring about many changes in your life. You will find that you will use muscles that just haven't been used much previously in your life. At first they ache, and then they become stronger, which is a good thing.

About three months after Alex was born I started having pain in my left wrist. If I moved my thumb away from my hand it hurt and I would feel a catching or snapping feeling. I did some research online, prior to going in to see a doctor, and it appeared that I had de Quervain's tenosynovitis, which is basically tendonitis of your thumb. The doctor confirmed the diagnosis and told me that it is very common for this to happen to first-time parents. In fact, it is sometimes referred to as "new mother's disease". His solution was a brace to keep my thumb immobile. After wearing the brace for a week or so, I decided that I would just make a conscious effort to keep my thumb next to the rest of the hand, because the brace really interfered with alot of other baby care items. It worked totally fine.


A news article from the Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2007-mchi/4185.html?mc-emref=y) had a very good description of the symptoms: "pain and swelling about a half-inch back from the base of the thumb. Pinching, grasping or other thumb and wrist movement may aggravate the pain. Without treatment, the pain may spread in the thumb, forearm or both. Wrist tendonitis is caused by irritation and swelling of the sheath that surrounds the major tendons connecting the wrist and lower thumb. It can result from overuse of the wrist and thumb together." Their explanation for why it happens so frequently with new parents is because they pick up infants with their thumbs out and wrists bent backwards. In the mothers the fact that the tendons and joints are loose, because of the preparation for birth, adds to the tendency toward this type of problem.

In my case, it happened in the left hand, probably because I am right-handed and previously didn't use my left hand as much as I do now. Anyway, the good news is that if you change the way that you use your hands, it can be helped, and better yet, if you exercise your hands prior to birth, you could probably avoid it altogether. If you used a stress ball or one of those hand exercisers prior to giving birth, your hand would probably just be strong enough. Also, keeping your thumb against your index finger, rather than extended outward really helps. I just do that now and it works just fine. The pain is seldom there now.