What to do when you experience hip pain during pregnancy
Nicola Tik
Hip pain during pregnancy can make moving around, sleeping, and getting comfortable feel genuinely difficult. There are some practical things you can do to reduce the load on your hips and help things feel more manageable day to day.
One of the most useful things you can do when your hips are uncomfortable is to avoid staying in one position for too long. Prolonged sitting shortens the hip flexors and reduces activity in the gluteal muscles, which can make discomfort worse when you eventually stand or start moving. Prolonged standing places its own sustained load through the hip joints. Varying between the two regularly, roughly every 30 to 45 minutes, helps distribute load more evenly.
When you do sit, try to keep your hips level rather than letting one side sink lower than the other. Sitting asymmetrically, with weight shifted to one side, increases load unevenly through the pelvis and sacroiliac joints and can aggravate hip discomfort over time.
Lying down can bring its own challenges, particularly in the third trimester. Lying on your side with a pillow between your knees is one of the most effective ways to reduce strain through the hip and pelvis during rest. It keeps the hips aligned and prevents the upper leg from pulling the pelvis into a rotated position, which can aggravate sacroiliac discomfort overnight.
When moving from lying to sitting or sitting to standing, taking your time and using your arms to support the transition reduces the sudden load through the hip. Moving with care rather than quickly tends to make a noticeable difference when things are uncomfortable.
Complete rest tends not to help hip pain settle as effectively as gentle, comfortable movement does. Short walks, slow hip circles, and easy movement within a comfortable range all help keep the surrounding muscles active and prevent stiffness from building up further.
The aim is to keep moving without pushing into pain. A little discomfort with movement is common during pregnancy, but sharp or worsening pain with activity is a signal to ease off and rest.
How you carry things day to day also affects how your hips feel. Carrying weight on one side, whether a bag, a toddler, or groceries, places asymmetric load through the pelvis and hip. Distributing weight as evenly as possible, or swapping sides regularly, is a small adjustment that can reduce how much your hips have to compensate across the day.
If you are tracking how your symptoms are shifting, your VIDA pain check-in is a good way to keep an eye on patterns over time.
If you notice pain spreading into your groin or down your leg, it is worth speaking to your GP or midwife.