Belly Bands
Get support and feel great during and post-pregnancy with a belly band
What is a belly band?
A belly band is a stretchy flexible support garment that you can wear around your tummy, waist, or hips, both during pregnancy and after. It is designed to offer support for your lower back, abdomen, and legs, allowing you to continue to go about day-to-day activities while helping reduce pain.
They come in different sizes including small, medium, and large (or size 1, 2, or 3, depending on the brand), and in different colours to match your clothing or skin tone, like nude, cream, white, and black. They can be made from materials like polyester, organic cotton, promodal fabric, bamboo, viscose, and spandex, and usually need to be hand washed and air dried.
What are the benefits of a belly band?
As noted, a belly band helps to support your lower back and abdomen during the time when there’s a baby on board and extra pressure is on those areas. It can help decrease back and joint pain by offering gentle compression to reduce discomfort you might feel while doing physical activities.
Belly bands can be especially useful for active women who wish to continue to exercise during the last two trimesters of pregnancy. But they are also great for helping increase your range of motion during everyday activities.
They can also, however, be used after pregnancy, helping with decreased core strength as you wait for muscles and ligaments that were stretched during pregnancy to heal.
They can also help encourage proper posture, and can function like girdles, helping you achieve a more slimmed down figure under your clothes as you work towards losing the baby weight. Some also purport to help minimize stretch marks, accelerate healing, and provide comfort after having a C-section.
Important things you should know about wearing a belly band
A belly band should only be worn for 2-3 hours at a time to prevent overdependence, and to avoid impacting the muscles underneath, which could become increasingly weakened over time if you wear one too long, and too often. Too much compression can impact your circulation and blood pressure and might even cause heartburn or indigestion.
They are only a temporary fix, helping you continue with your regular activities when you need extra support and pain management. But they do not heal underlying conditions.
If you are pregnant, you should consult your doctor before using a belly band, as some women with compromised circulation or abnormal blood pressure might be advised against using one.
Note as well that some belly bands are designed specifically for post-pregnancy use, so make sure you select the right type if you plan to wear it while you are pregnant. And some are designed such that they fit better on shorter women versus tall. Look for one that offers good moisture management, too, to prevent bacteria growth and/or skin irritation.