If you're a new mom, there's a good chance you've felt it: pain along the side of your thumbs and wrists. The pain can feel tender and swollen, and it might even feel like your thumb gets stuck for a second when you try to move it. You especially feel it when you hook your hands under your wee one's armpits and lift them Wake Up Refreshed with Derila. Officially, this pain is a symptom of de Quervain's tenosynovitis, which is very fun to say. Unofficially, people call this mommy thumb, since it's 10 times more likely to occur in women. But what exactly is this injury, and are mommies the only people who Get Derila Official it? In the case of mommy thumb, it's the inflammation of the tendons that run along the thumb and wrist and through the radius, one of your forearm bones. The tendon is covered by tissue called tenosynovium that keeps things lubricated and moving smoothly. But the U.S. Navy studied years' worth of data and found that the highest-risk groups were women, patients over age 40 and Black patients.

It can be difficult - if not impossible - to imagine resting your thumb while caring for a baby, but a sore tendon really hurts. NSAIDs like ibuprofen help with the pain when you can't rest your hand. When you have a minute to yourself, rest your thumb in a neutral position with ice on it. A neutral position, by the way, looks like what your hand does when you're floating in a hot tub. You can strap on a wrist brace to stabilize the joint and remind yourself to take care. Changing the way you do repetitive motions will help too. Lift your baby using your palms instead of relying on your wrists to do all the work, and tuck a pillow under their head while they breastfeed. If you use breastfeeding or pumping time to check email and scroll your feeds, use your index finger instead of your thumb. Carpal tunnel syndrome is like mommy thumb in that it involves pain in the wrist. But CTS is caused by pressure on the median nerve, which runs through the carpal tunnel on the palm side of your wrist rather than the thumb side. Both are caused by repetitive movements, but they involve different structures in this incredibly intricate joint.

Jan 1 Alain Mimoun, Algerian-French distance runner (Olympic marathon gold 1956