New parents get hand problems for a reason nobody warns them about: the load goes up every single week and never comes down. A newborn weighs three or four kilos. By six months that is closer to eight, lifted dozens of times a day, usually with the thumbs doing the work under the arms, by someone who is exhausted and not sleeping.
It has a nickname because it is that common.
Mummy wrist. Fathers and adoptive parents get it too, and so do grandparents and nannies — the lifting is what causes it, not the biology.
The main one
Pain on the thumb side of the wrist, worst lifting the baby under the arms with thumbs up, or lifting a car seat, or a kettle. That is De Quervain’s tenosynovitis.
- Scoop, don’t pinch. Slide a flat hand and forearm under the baby and lift with the whole arm rather than gripping under the armpits with thumbs out. This single change does more than anything else here
- Keep the wrist straight when lifting. The damaging position is thumb up with the wrist bending towards the little finger
- A thumb spica splint at night. It must include the thumb — a plain wrist brace does nothing for this condition
- Carry the car seat with two hands or on the forearm, never hooked over one thumb and fingers
- Vary how you feed and hold. Alternate sides, use pillows to support the baby’s weight rather than your arms
The baby gets heavier every week. Nobody else trains for a load that increases forever and then wonders why their wrist gave out at four months.
The rest of it
- Night numbness in thumb, index and middle fingers: carpal tunnel syndrome. Very common in pregnancy and the months afterwards, and the pregnancy-related version follows different rules — see carpal tunnel in pregnancy
- Catching at the base of a finger: trigger finger, which also rises around pregnancy and the postnatal period
- Outer elbow pain lifting and carrying: tennis elbow
- Thumb-side wrist pain plus hours of one-handed phone use: the loads add together — see thumb pain from phone use
- Swollen, stiff hands in the mornings during pregnancy or early postnatally: usually fluid, and it settles, but how long the stiffness lasts is the thing to time
What to expect
Most of these settle with technique change and a correctly fitted splint over about six weeks, and the splint is compatible with everything a parent has to do. The stubborn ones respond well to an injection, which is generally compatible with breastfeeding — worth asking rather than assuming it is off the table.
What does not work is waiting for the baby to get lighter.
Get it assessed if
- Numbness that has stopped coming and going, or wakes you every night
- You are avoiding lifting your own child because of pain
- A finger that catches or locks
- Six weeks of changed lifting and a proper splint with no improvement
- Pain severe enough that you are dropping things
Ask for a hand therapy referral specifically. A splint that includes the thumb, made or fitted properly, is the difference between six weeks and six months.
Change how you lift before you change anything else. Most of this is a technique problem with a very heavy, very demanding load.
Every article on this site is written using the Closing Window Method: name the window your condition runs on, find where you are in it, and act while it’s still open.