A woman needs sleep the most when she is conceiving a baby. Unfortunately, with a developing child inside her womb, a comfortable rest would be difficult to enjoy. Thus, pregnancy pillows were invented to provide the necessary comfort as she sleeps through the duration of the pregnancy.

According to health experts, the best position for a pregnant woman to sleep would be on her side. This position allows the circulation of blood in her body to be unobstructed. Sleeping sideways will also prevent the baby dwelling in her womb to press on the mother’s liver while she sleeps. And more importantly, with the additional weight in the mother’s midsection, the spine, particularly on the lower back portion, could be misaligned or stressed if the pregnant mother decides to sleep on her back. This will lead to back pains that the mother will have to endure for a long time.

The conventional solution of pregnant women seeking relief from this ordeal would be propping themselves up using a number of pillows. The pillows are positioned to support every part of the body that needs support and it usually works. But conventional pillows, together with the bed, usually aren’t ergonomically sound and may lead to the wrong position of the person’s appendage during sleep that it could lead to a sore muscle or a stiff neck in the morning. It would be an inconvenience especially for a pregnant woman to wake with additional soreness in her body even after long hours of sleep.

Because of these, pregnancy pillows were conceptualized. Of course, there are various kinds of pregnancy pillows. The simplest one is a long, sausage shaped pillow as long as a king sized bed. This is a great pillow to provide comfort for the whole body as well as something to hug. The problem with this is that, it only supports the belly but not the back.

The newer versions of the pregnancy pillows support not only the belly but every part of the body that requires support. They would support the neck, the shoulders, the knees, the belly and the back. This way, you could be sure that during the whole nine months of pregnancy, especially the third trimester, every inch of the body could feel comfort and ease during sleep.

As was said, these new designs of pregnancy pillows are ergonomically designed therefore the shape is far from simply being a long bolster. The shapes vary from a U shaped bolster, a shape of a kidney bean and some irregular and asymmetric shapes. These shapes allows the pillow to snug the body to provide maximum comfort. To top it off, some pillows are made of memory foam, so the relief provided by the pillow is much better than the comfort provided by conventional pillows.

One of the many things that are considered when purchasing a pregnancy pillow is what to do with it after the pregnancy. Well, just because it’s called a pregnancy pillow doesn’t mean you can only use it when your pregnant. The comfort it provides to women is the same whether she’s pregnant or not. That is the purpose of having an ergonomically sound design. It should be comfortable to use and should support your body.

Pregnancy pillows could also be used as a nursing pillow. It could support not only the mother but also the baby. This way, both mother and child are supported and positioned properly by the pregnancy pillow.

If you like sleeping on your side, you probably know that subtle pain you feel on your knees, hips and lower back when your knees touch each other. This position causes pain because of the unnatural posture of your body which causes the joints on your hips to over extend. This may lead to a serious pain and soreness if staying in this posture is prolonged. What you need is to correct the position of the knees by using a knee pillow.

A knee pillow is a something that you could put between your knees, to keep them apart. By keeping the knees apart, the knee of the top leg will not be strained and will be aligned with the hips. This will prevent any sore to be felt on the joints.

Knee pillows are usually made with polyurethane foam either rectangular in shape or shaped like an hour glass. The rectangular shaped knee pillow are difficult to keep in place and would usually have a velcro strap so it would stay in position with your leg while the hour glass shaped knee pillow is more stable because it has trenches on both sides where you could place your legs in.

Knee pillows are cheap luxury products. They are very affordable but you don’t necessarily need to own or use knee pillows sold in the market. In fact, you could use a normal pillow as a knee pillow.

In South East Asia, China and Japan, it is customary to have an extra pillow to hug and keep the knees apart. It comes in different names but function the same way. Aside from having something to hug when you sleep, it also provides comfort by letting you maintain the correct posture by having your knees align with your hips.

Knee pillows would be a great companion in your sleep but as we said, it is a luxury more than a necessity. Even a normal or ordinary pillow could work as a knee pillow so you don’t have to spend so much on something you could replace with something cheaper.

But if you have the money to spare and you want an ergonomically designed pillow to support your knees, hips and back, then knee pillows would certainly be a great product for you.

Although conceiving a child is a miracle that brings hope and joy between couples, the stages that both husband and wife would go through during the duration of the maternity is painful, stressful and uncomfortable. To make things a lot easier for the partners, maternity pillows are made to help couples, especially the wife, to get through the ordeal with a more comfortable sleep.

When a woman becomes pregnant, a lot of things in her body would experience change. The most obvious would be the enlargement of her belly and the increase of her weight. With the gradual enlargement of her belly, a conceiving woman’s weight displacement changes that and it will require an adjustment to her posture. This will cause a stress on her lower back and neck leading to back pains and shoulder pains. With the growth of the baby in her womb, her abdominal muscles weaken which makes it difficult for her to tuck her stomach in when standing and thus, will contribute to the pains she feels.

All these would lead to the discomfort of the wife and there’s not much that anyone can do to relieve her of the burden she has to go through everyday for the whole maternity period. What can be done however is to provide comfort for her during sleep by allowing her to sleep in a more comfortable posture.

To achieve this, she should sleep in the most comfortable position where blood circulation in her body is least obstructed. Also, all the stress points of her body during this period should be supported to prevent soreness of the muscles. The important areas in her body that needs to be supported are her knees, belly, back and neck.

By propping pillows on these areas, support for her body could be provided. But pillows could lose their position and may not be as snug as she wants them to be. So, what could be done is using maternity pillows.

Maternity pillows come in different sizes and shapes with ergonomic designs that could help support the stress points and delicate parts of a pregnant woman’s body. This would be the ultimate source of comfort for w woman during her pregnancy and such a product would be advisable for her use.

In terms of postures, there are proper postures that a woman should have while standing, reclining, on her side or lying on her back. Listed below are the proper postures that she should have:

When Standing:

• Don’t lean forward, this will cause a strain on your neck. Keep your chin up as much as possible

• Try not to sway your hips as much. This will cause lower back pains

• Don’t wear heels, it will cause a shift in weight forward and might cause you to lose your balance.

• Keep your head straight

When Sitting Down:

• Don’t slouch, this will obstruct circulation

• Don’t cross your legs, this will also obstruct circulation

• Keep your knees level with your hips to avoid stress on your lower back

• Sit with the whole leg supported by the chair

When on your side:

• Support your uterus by putting a pillow under it

• Support your back as well with a pillow

• You’re head should obviously have a pillow that should support the neck as well

• A pillow between the knees to support the top knee and to avoid obstruction of circulation

When on your back:

• Elevate your head by propping a pillow under it

• Place a pillow under your knees to keep it bent. This will make your pelvis tilt as well as keep your back straight.

Considering all these postures should be enough to cause stress to a pregnant woman. But with the help of maternity pillows, there shouldn’t be much discomfort plus she could feel at least a bit more convenient with just having only one pillow to adjust and move every time she changes position.