Have you noticed your parents, grandparents, or any senior guide in your home sleeping with a leg spacer pillow for comfort? Or even any other person sleeping with pillows between their legs, do you think it’s just for convenience, or is there any particular reason behind it?
Everyone has their reason like pregnant women sleep this way for comfort; for some, it’s just a kick for their posture; for some, it supports the sleeping comfort, while for some, it’s an ultimate remedy to reduce or treat their knee pain. What is the medical reason for using a leg spacer pillow in the chaos of all these assumptions?
Let’s look at the actual reason;
The Purpose & Benefit of Using Leg Spacer Pillow
Using a pillow as a leg spacer helps keep your pelvis neutral and prevents your spine from rotating during your sleep. It further provides a good alignment that relieves some stress from the tissues in your back and is thus helpful in reducing pain often caused by sciatica or herniated disc.
For this reason, now many people use specifically recommended memory foam leg spacer pillow available in medical supplies website online, and in any vast pharmacy, or the medical store where other equipment’s are also provided.
Is it Harmful Sleeping without Support or Not Putting Pillows Between Your Legs?
This is the most highlighting concern that needs to be pondered to understand its significance, since it’s imperative to learn what can happen if you support without back support or not using a leg spacer. What happens is, sleeping on your side without proper support can allow your spine to mold in a bent or twisted position.
If it stays in the same position the whole night, this can stress joints between knees, hips, and other joined body parts. Now, coming to benefits how it can be helpful.
Notable Advantages of Using Leg Spacer Pillow;
The main advantages are; it helps to reduce;
- Low back pain Sciatica pain
- Knee pain
- Hip pain
- Improves breathing
Besides, there are some other considerable advantages as well, such as;
- It adds comfort and makes you get rid of pressure by keeping your knees on top of one another. This ensures that your pelvic area and hips are in alignment.
- It reduces the stress on the hip as it prevents it from rotating and pulling the spine out of alignment.
- It’s great for people who suffer from lower back pain or leg pain, especially those with sciatica. When you sleep on your side, your upper leg might roll forward to rest on the mattress. This twisting pressure on the lower back can irritate the sciatic nerve.
- It improves blood circulation. The slight elevation of putting a pillow between your legs will help facilitate blood flow through the vena cava, which is a central vein carrying blood to the heart and back.
Why is it Beneficial for Pregnant Women to Sleep with Pillows between Legs?
Every doctor recommends pregnant women to sleep on their side, especially the left side, as it’s considered an ideal position. It’s commonly believed that sleeping on your left side results in optimal blood circulation and keeps the uterus from sitting on the liver.
Nevertheless, a leg spacer pillow provides more comfortable sleep and reduces back pain by keeping the spine neutral. Now, most medical equipment manufacturing companies provide C or U-shaped pregnancy pillows, which are designed to make sleeping on your side more comfortable. These pads embrace your body and have a piece that you can fit between your knees.
Any Best Remedy for Neck Pain? Pillow or Posture?
Both goes hand in hand! The best solution for this issue is; either neck exercise or specific physical therapy neck pillows that can be pretty helpful in providing comfortable, good night sleep.
The customized neck pillows are made with such fabric materials that provide comfort to the spine. However, the main tip that can be effective in ending up neck pain or other neck problems is, get the neck in neutral.
Stand straight with your ears lining up with shoulders, but the posture is out when you sleep. When you use two thick pillows beneath your head, this pushes your neck right forward. On the other hand, if you sleep without a pillow, there will be stress on the channel all night long.
To conclude, sleeping straight on the back with proper neck posture can help in reducing neck pain. Give it a try!