Pregnancy is beautiful, they say. Miraculous. A blessing. And it is all those things. But it’s also exhausting, uncomfortable, and filled with aches and pains that no one adequately prepares you for. Lower back pain. Hip pain. Sciatic nerve pain that shoots down your leg and makes you wonder if your body is conspiring against you.
And then someone tells you to have your husband roll tennis balls over your lower back.
It sounds ridiculous. Tennis balls? The things you use for sports or throw for dogs? Those are supposed to help with the kind of pain that makes it hard to sleep, hard to walk, hard to exist comfortably in your own body?
But here’s the thing: it works.
The woman sharing this tip learned it in her Bradley Method classes—a childbirth preparation approach that emphasizes natural techniques and partner involvement. One of those techniques is simple: the pregnant person lies over a gliding ottoman (or any comfortable surface), and their partner uses tennis balls to apply pressure to the lower back, hips, and rear end. The pressure hits exactly the spots that hurt most, releasing tension in ways that hands alone can’t replicate.
For pregnancy-related back pain, sciatic nerve pain, and hip discomfort, it’s not just helpful—it’s transformative. The kind of relief that makes you wonder why no one told you about this months ago. The kind that makes you feel, for the first time in weeks, like your body isn’t entirely against you.
She wanted to share it because she knows there are pregnant people out there right now, reading this at 2 AM because they can’t sleep from the pain, wondering if this is just what the rest of pregnancy feels like. And she wanted them to know: there’s relief. It’s simple, it’s free (assuming you have tennis balls), and it works.
The more pressure, the better. Lower back pain? Gone in seconds. Sciatic nerve pain? Significantly reduced. It’s not a cure-all—pregnancy is still hard, bodies still ache—but it’s a tool. A way to reclaim some comfort during a time when comfort feels increasingly rare.
What makes this even more special is the partner involvement. This isn’t something you can do for yourself—you need someone else to apply the pressure, to adjust based on where it hurts most, to spend time focused entirely on helping you feel better. It turns pain relief into an act of care, a moment of connection during a time when pregnancy can feel isolating.
Partners want to help. They see the discomfort, the exhaustion, the way pregnancy takes a physical toll that they can’t fully understand. And often they don’t know what to do. They can’t carry the baby for you. Can’t take away the morning sickness or the swollen ankles or the sleepless nights. But they can do this. They can roll tennis balls over your lower back and give you ten minutes of relief. And that matters.
Pregnancy advice is everywhere—some of it useful, most of it unsolicited. But this tip isn’t about telling anyone what they should do. It’s about offering a solution to people who are actively suffering, who are searching for anything that might help. It’s about saying: if you’re pregnant and in pain, try this. It might sound weird, but it works.
And if it doesn’t work for you, that’s okay too. Bodies are different. Pain is different. What helps one person might not help another. But for those it does help—and there are many—it’s a small miracle. The kind that comes in a can of tennis balls and fifteen minutes of focused attention from someone who loves you.
If you’re pregnant and haven’t tried this yet, you can thank her later. Find your tennis balls, recruit your partner, and give yourself permission to take fifteen minutes to focus on feeling better. Your body is doing something extraordinary. It deserves care, comfort, and whatever small reliefs we can find along the way.