Knees hurting after pregnancy?

Question

I’m 10 weeks pp and started running again a few weeks ago. Lately even running 1 mile hurts my knees. I’ve never had any sort of joint pains before. Pre pregnancy I ran 2-3 miles every other day with no problems. I do weigh about 15 lbs more now than I did pre pregnancy so I’m sure that doesn’t help. I read that this can happen as a result of pregnancy and breastfeeding hormones and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this? Did it go away when you stopped breastfeeding? Or am I doomed to have knee pain now? Any advice?

Answer

I have a few thoughts:
- Not sure how long into your pregnancy you ran, but just being off running for a significant period of running is going to make it rough starting back up. You've likely lost some strength in the muscles that provide support around your knees, too.
- Weight could definitely be contributing. I definitely felt my weight starting up pp after having my son, & I've seen that with teammates who gained even 5-10lbs (knees are, I think, a particularly common place where unusual weight can cause discomfort). Obviously not really anything too be done about that, just expect your body to need to adjust more.
- How are your shoes? Might you need to replace them?
- I was REALLY conservative starting up after having my son. I ran NCAA D1 xc & track, & I followed our protocol that we used to follow when coming back from an injury, which was to start by running just 5 minutes every other day, then the next week 7 minutes, then 10.... just very comfortable pace. I still felt like garbage for a while, but I think it helped me avoid any major pain (plus I wanted to avoid shocking my body & inadvertently hurting my milk supply, & there's so much variety in how sensitive people are in that regard that I wanted to play it safe). So possibly you might benefit from backing off a bit & being more conservative?

Knees hurting after pregnancy?

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