Part of Carpal tunnel syndrome

Carpal tunnel in pregnancy and after the birth

Carpal tunnel in pregnancy is tingling, numbness, burning or pain in the thumb side of the hand, usually worst at night, often in both hands, and usually in the second half of pregnancy. The explanation most often given is that the body holds more water than usual, which leaves the median nerve less room in a tunnel at the wrist that cannot get any bigger. The NHS lists pregnancy among the things that make carpal tunnel syndrome more likely, and in a Dutch study that followed 639 pregnant women, 219 of them, or 34 percent, reported carpal tunnel symptoms (Meems 2015). The first steps are the ordinary ones: a wrist splint worn at night to keep the wrist straight while you sleep, and cutting down on hard gripping and wrist bending where your day allows it. Here is the part other pages gloss over. The NHS says carpal tunnel syndrome sometimes gets better by itself in a few months, particularly when pregnancy is the reason for it, and many women do improve as the extra fluid settles after the birth. For a large minority they do not, at least not quickly. In an Italian study that followed 63 pregnant women with no treatment given for the hand symptoms, 54 percent of those who had carpal tunnel symptoms in pregnancy still had them a year later (Padua 2002). So nobody can promise you that this ends on the day your baby arrives. What we can tell you is that hands which are still numb weeks or months later should be assessed rather than waited out, and that constant numbness, a weakening thumb or a flattening muscle at the base of the thumb changes the urgency and has its own line in the warning signs below. Tell your midwife, obstetrician or doctor about new hand symptoms, because sudden swelling of the face, hands or feet in pregnancy or after the birth needs checking for a different reason altogether.

Warning signs, and when to get help

What causes carpal tunnel in pregnancy?

Extra fluid in a space that cannot stretch. That is the short answer, and the longer one is that the sources we can read describe what goes with it, not what causes it.

The anatomy is what links pregnancy, of all things, to your hands. The median nerve passes through a narrow tunnel on the palm side of your wrist, shoulder to shoulder with the tendons that bend your fingers, and the roof of that tunnel is a stiff band of tissue. Swell the contents even slightly and there is nowhere for the pressure to go. The main carpal tunnel page covers the anatomy and the typical symptoms in more detail.

Pregnancy adds fluid. The NHS explains swelling in pregnancy by the body holding more water than usual, and it lists pregnancy among the things that make carpal tunnel syndrome more likely. The link with fluid has been measured directly: in 639 women in the southeast of the Netherlands followed from 12 weeks of pregnancy, those who reported carpal tunnel symptoms also reported significantly more fluid retention than those who did not, and more fluid retention across pregnancy went with higher odds of having symptoms, with an odds ratio of 1.8 (Meems 2015). There is also a measurement of the nerve itself. In a smaller study of women in the third trimester, the 25 who had symptoms had a larger median nerve cross-section on ultrasound than the 64 who did not (Goncu Ayhan 2022).

What none of the papers we can cite does is name the cause. OrthoInfo goes as far as hormonal changes in pregnancy causing swelling that puts pressure on the nerve, and the readable evidence stops there. One of the commonest searches on this subject asks which hormone is responsible. We looked, and we are not going to name one, because the papers do not.

That explanation also tells you when to expect it. Symptoms more often come on in the second half of pregnancy than the first, and in the Dutch group the symptom scores were worse after 32 weeks than before (Meems 2015). The NHS says carpal tunnel symptoms are usually worse at night, which is why the hands are often loudest in bed and first thing in the morning.

How common is it, and why both hands?

Common enough that your midwife or obstetric team will have met it many times. The published numbers look as though they contradict each other, and there is a reason for that.

The best figure we can give you from a single prospective study is 34 percent: 219 of those 639 Dutch women reported carpal tunnel symptoms during pregnancy, measured with a hand questionnaire rather than a nerve test, and most of them had symptoms the authors described as mild to moderate (Meems 2015). Mean scores were worse after 32 weeks than before.

Now the wider range. A systematic review that found six usable studies reported pregnancy-related carpal tunnel syndrome in 7 to 43 percent of women where the diagnosis was confirmed on nerve conduction testing, and in 31 to 62 percent where it was diagnosed clinically, and it attributed the spread mainly to how cases were detected (Padua 2010). That is not two conflicting facts. It is one fact about measurement: a study that counts symptoms will always count more women than a study that requires an abnormal nerve test. So if you see a single percentage quoted anywhere for this, including by us, ask what it counted.

Both hands is the usual pattern here, not the odd one. Fluid retention is a whole-body change and you have two identical tunnels, so there is no reason for it to pick a side. Which hand is worse often tracks which one you use more. Outside pregnancy both hands is also the usual picture, and what causes carpal tunnel to flare up has the general version of that, along with what makes a quiet hand loud again.

One reason not to write both hands off as part of pregnancy. Numbness in both hands, together with hands that have slowly become clumsy, can come from pressure on the spinal cord in the neck instead of the wrists, and clinicians who write about that condition say that in their own clinical experience it is often first labeled and treated as carpal tunnel syndrome, particularly when it affects both sides (Davies 2018). It is uncommon. It is also easy to check, which is why it sits in the warning signs at the end of this page with a same-day timeframe on it.

Why it is worst at night, and how to sleep

Because a wrist left folded for hours gives the nerve less room than a straight one, and nobody chooses their wrist position while asleep.

That is the whole logic of a night splint, and it is also why being woken is usually the first thing you notice, before anything during the day. Why carpal tunnel is worse at night and how to sleep goes further into why it wakes you and how to set a bed up so the wrist stays straighter, and it has a section on doing that while you are pregnant. Shaking the hand until the tingling fades is not a bad instinct and it is what most people arrive at on their own.

Two things you can change tonight: wear the splint if you have one, and stop the hand from being trapped. Hands tucked under a pillow or wedged under your own body spend the night bent, and in late pregnancy, when you are already propped on cushions, this happens more than it used to. Resting the forearm on something in front of you, with the wrist in line with the arm, is easier to keep up than trying to hold a position.

From about 28 weeks of pregnancy the NHS advises going to sleep on your side rather than on your back, because it says sleeping on your back after that point can double the risk of stillbirth. So use the side set-up above, and leave lying on your back until after the birth. The NHS also says not to worry if you wake up on your back: settle onto your side again and carry on.

If you are also dealing with back or pelvic pain at night, pregnancy back and pelvic pain covers getting in and out of bed without twisting.

What helps during pregnancy

The first steps are the same ones used outside pregnancy. That is good news: they cost little and none of them needs a prescription.

A wrist splint worn at night, sometimes sold as a night brace, holds the wrist straight while you sleep. The NHS says you may need to wear one for up to 6 weeks before it starts to feel better. That figure cuts both ways, and the second half is the useful one: if you have worn it right through the night for those 6 weeks and your nights are no better, go back to your midwife, physio or doctor rather than buying a different splint. A splint only does its job if it holds the wrist close to straight rather than tipped back, and the main carpal tunnel page has the fit check and what the trials found.

Fit is not a one-off in pregnancy, and that is the part splint instructions leave out. The swelling behind your symptoms keeps changing, so a splint that was right at 30 weeks can be tight by 38, and tight is the one thing it must not be. Judge it by your fingers rather than by the date. If it leaves a mark on your skin, or your fingers look swollen or feel more numb with it on than without it, loosen the straps, and if that does not settle within a few minutes, take it off for the rest of the night and get the fit checked before you wear it again. That last part is what physiotherapists do rather than published advice, because no source we could read covers a splint on a hand that is still swelling.

Then the daytime half, which is about load, not rest. The NHS advises stopping or cutting down on whatever makes you bend your wrist repeatedly or grip hard. In late pregnancy that list is rarely about work. It is the hairdryer held up for ten minutes, the phone propped against a bent wrist in bed, the shopping carried on hooked fingers. Most of those have a version that keeps the wrist straighter and the grip lighter, and that version is usually the lazier one.

Gentle movement of the hand and fingers sits perfectly well alongside the splint, and the stage 1 work on the parent page is where it lives: tendon glides, the median nerve glide, easy wrist bending and thumb to fingertip touches. You will not find a pregnancy exercise program here, and that is deliberate, because there is no evidence base for one. If you are pregnant, check with your midwife or physio before you start. If a faint tingle comes on, make the movement smaller; it should settle within a few seconds of stopping. Tingling or numbness that builds with each repetition, lasts after you stop, or makes your night symptoms worse means the exercise is too much. Leave it out or drop back a stage. There is no separate pregnancy dose, and we are not going to make one up. The doses on the main carpal tunnel page are the doses, and your physio or physical therapist will adjust this to your hand.

If you have had carpal tunnel release surgery, follow the program your surgeon or hand therapist gives you rather than this one. A hand with a healing wound in the palm is not the hand any of this was written for, and what a scar will take, and when, is for the team that operated to say.

If you had this in a previous pregnancy, start earlier this time. None of the studies we could read puts a number on how often it comes back, so we are not giving you one, but there is nothing to be gained by waiting for the nights to get bad again before you dig out the splint and take the gripping out of your day. Tell your midwife at your first appointment that it happened last time, so it is on the record before anybody has to ask.

One gap worth naming. The NHS page on swelling in pregnancy names swollen fingers, but every piece of self-help on it is for the lower half of you: resting with your feet up, comfortable shoes, walks and foot exercises. There is nothing hand-specific in it, so there is no published hand-swelling routine for us to pass on. The thing that is published, and matters more, is the warning at the end of this page.

If your pain is on the thumb side of the wrist and worse when you grip or lift, without the night-time numbness, you may be in the wrong place: de Quervain's tenosynovitis is a tendon problem that is also common around pregnancy and a new baby.

What about medicines, injections and surgery?

These are decisions for the team looking after your pregnancy, and this page does not weigh them for you.

That is not evasiveness, it is the limit of what we can source. The safety of a given medicine in pregnancy or while breastfeeding is not something a physiotherapy page can rule on, and the general rule published for it is clear enough: the NHS asks you to check with a pharmacist, midwife or doctor before taking any medicine in pregnancy, painkillers included. While you are breastfeeding, the NHS asks you to tell whoever is advising you, whether that is a pharmacist, midwife, health visitor or doctor, that you are feeding. Never stop a prescribed medicine on your own.

Steroid injection, sometimes called a cortisone injection, and the operation to release the tunnel are both used for carpal tunnel syndrome, and the main carpal tunnel page sets out what the trials found for each outside pregnancy. Whether either has a place while you are pregnant or breastfeeding is a conversation with your midwife, obstetrician or doctor and with the specialist they refer you to. Tell them how much sleep you are losing and what you can no longer do with your hands, because severity is what moves that conversation.

It is still worth knowing what the surgical half of that conversation is about, even though this page will not weigh it for you. The operation, a carpal tunnel release, does nothing to the nerve itself. OrthoInfo describes it as cutting the stiff band that forms the roof of the tunnel (the transverse carpal ligament), which makes the tunnel bigger and takes the pressure off the median nerve so blood can reach it properly again. The nerve then recovers, or does not, in its own time. So the choice being weighed is between waiting for the pressure to come off by itself, which is what settling fluid does after the birth, and having it taken off.

What makes it more pressing is what the nerve is doing. How far along you are, and whether you are feeding, affect the timing and the route, not whether the nerve needs looking at. OrthoInfo lists what a surgeon weighs up: how severe the symptoms are, what the examination finds, whether non-surgical treatment has helped, and the results of any testing. It also says that in long-standing cases with constant numbness and wasting of the thumb muscles, surgery may be recommended to prevent irreversible damage, which is why those particular signs carry a time frame in the warning list at the end of this page. The hand side of the decision belongs to a hand specialist, the pregnancy and feeding side to your maternity team, and the two get settled together rather than one at a time.

Does carpal tunnel go away after the birth?

Often it improves. Not always, and not always quickly, and you deserve the real numbers rather than reassurance.

The hopeful part is real. The NHS says carpal tunnel syndrome sometimes gets better by itself in a few months, particularly when pregnancy is the reason for it, and many women do improve as fluid levels settle in the weeks after the birth.

The follow-up studies are the part nobody quotes. In an Italian study that followed 63 pregnant women and treated none of their hand symptoms, 54 percent of those who had carpal tunnel symptoms in pregnancy still had them a year later, and women whose symptoms had begun earlier in pregnancy were less likely to improve after delivery (Padua 2002). The systematic review that collected the follow-up evidence reported symptoms persisting in more than half of women at one year and in about 30 percent at three years (Padua 2010). Those studies counted symptoms rather than nerve tests, and the women in them were untreated, so they are not a forecast for you personally.

What that means in practice is simple. If you are four months past the birth and your hand is still numb, you are not an unlucky exception and you have not missed your window. You are in a group the research recognizes, and the next step is an assessment rather than more waiting.

What it does not mean is that persisting symptoms are permanent nerve damage. A squeezed nerve stops working properly long before it is damaged beyond recovery, and OrthoInfo describes the usual course as symptoms that come and go at first and then come more often or last longer as things get worse. That is why the signs that change the urgency are the specific ones on the warning list: numbness that is there all the time, a thumb that is getting weaker, and the fleshy muscle at the base of the thumb looking flatter than on the other side.

Whether breastfeeding changes any of this, we cannot tell you. We found no evidence we were willing to lean on, so that one goes to your own clinician and gets no answer here.

Feeding, carrying and lifting a baby with sore hands

Nothing about a newborn is kind to a wrist, and most hand advice written for pregnancy stops at the birth.

Think about what a feed asks of your hands. Long minutes with the wrist bent back to support a head, the other hand gripping a bottle or holding a breast, repeated through the day and the night. That is sustained grip and a bent wrist together, which is the exact combination the NHS advice asks you to cut down on. The fix is almost always support rather than effort: pillows, a cushion or a feeding pillow taking the baby's weight so your wrist is resting and not holding, and the forearm supported along its length so the hand is not the thing doing the work. Swapping sides matters more than usual if one hand is worse.

Lifting is where wrists get caught out. Scooping a baby up with the wrists bent back and the fingers spread loads the tunnel at the worst angle. Taking the weight on your forearms, bringing the baby in close before you straighten up, and keeping the wrists in line with the forearms makes the same lift cost less. Car seats are the other one: carried on four hooked fingers with the wrist bent, which is why they hurt by the time you reach the car. Both hands on the frame, held close to your body, or a seat that clicks into a base, if that is an option for you.

Now the part that matters more than any of the technique above. A hand can go numb while you are holding the baby, and a grip can give way without warning, so set a feed up on the assumption that it might. Sit down to feed and to lift rather than doing either on the move, keep the baby over your lap, the bed or the cot rather than over a hard floor, and put the baby down before you shake the hand out, not after. If your grip has given way on you more than once, say so out loud when you are assessed, and get help with the lifting and the stairs until somebody has looked at the hand. Hot drinks belong on the other side of the room from the baby for the same reason.

Two points about where you feed, which belong on this page rather than a hands page. The pillows that make a feed comfortable also make it easy to doze off in a chair, and the NHS advises not sleeping on a sofa or in an armchair with your baby, and not sharing a bed with your baby if you have taken any medicine that makes you feel drowsy. So feed somewhere you could safely fall asleep, and put the baby down in their own cot before you do. If you are on your own, get everything within reach before you start, because the middle of a feed with two numb hands is the worst moment to be stretching for a cushion.

Two last points, offered as what physiotherapists suggest and not as published advice, because no guideline covers a feed. Splints are awkward with a newborn, and plenty of women abandon them in the first month, so if the splint is the problem, ask your physio or physical therapist about wearing it for part of the night instead of giving up on it. And broken sleep removes the one position you had control over, which means the daytime changes carry more weight than they would otherwise.

Pain on the thumb side of the wrist when you lift the baby is a different problem, and de Quervain's tenosynovitis owns it, including the lifting technique for it. If your questions are about your stomach muscles, your pelvic floor or getting back to exercise, those belong to postnatal core and pelvic floor recovery and diastasis recti. If you have recently given birth, including by cesarean section, or you have a gap down the middle of your stomach muscles (diastasis recti), ask your physio, midwife or doctor first.

If it has not settled after the birth

Get it looked at. That is the whole of the advice. The reason sits in the numbers further up this page, not in anything alarming about your hand.

A few things are worth saying to whoever assesses you, because they change what happens next. When the symptoms started, meaning which week of pregnancy, since earlier onset was linked with slower recovery (Padua 2002). Whether the numbness now comes and goes or is there all the time. What you cannot do: buttons, a zip, picking up small objects, holding a cup without watching it. Whether you are dropping things.

From there the usual routes open up. A physiotherapist, physical therapist or hand therapist can check the splint, the load through your day and whether the problem is at the wrist at all. Your doctor can refer you on. The main carpal tunnel page covers what the options look like once pregnancy and breastfeeding are no longer part of the decision, and wrist and hand conditions lists the other problems that can produce similar hands.

One thing not to do is wait for a milestone. There is no point in the first year at which carpal tunnel syndrome stops being treatable, and equally no reason to sit at six months with a constantly numb hand because somebody told you it would go after the birth.

What does change with time is how much comes back, because the state the nerve is in when the pressure finally comes off is what decides that. OrthoInfo says most people improve after a release and that recovery can be gradual, taking up to a year, but that where the disease was severe, feeling in the fingertips may take 6 to 12 months to return, and that in very severe cases some people never completely regain normal sensation. It gives the same 6 to 12 months for grip and pinch strength where the nerve was in poor condition before the operation. It adds that surgery is still worth doing in those cases, to stop the nerve getting any worse. Read both halves of that. There is no deadline you can miss, and there is also nothing to be gained by waiting out a hand that has been numb all the time for months.

When to tell your midwife or doctor straight away

Tell your midwife, obstetrician or doctor about new hand symptoms as a matter of course, not because tingling is dangerous, but because one pattern involving swollen hands is not about your wrists at all.

The distinction is between two kinds of swelling. Hand and finger swelling that builds gradually through pregnancy is ordinary, and it is the swelling behind most carpal tunnel symptoms. A sudden increase in swelling in your face, hands or feet is different, and the NHS lists it among the signs of pre-eclampsia that need contacting your midwife, doctor or maternity unit immediately. The same applies in the days and weeks after the birth, which catches people out, because the warning is usually filed under pregnancy. If you are cared for by an obstetrician rather than a midwife, as is usual in much of the United States and in parts of Canada, read every mention of a midwife or maternity unit below as whoever is looking after your pregnancy and whichever unit they would send you to.

The other two groups on the list are about the nerve, not the pregnancy. Numbness that is there all the time, a thumb getting weaker, or the fleshy muscle at the base of the thumb looking flatter than the other side: these need a doctor within a few days rather than waiting it out, in or out of pregnancy. And numbness in both hands with hands that have become clumsy needs advice the same day, because of the neck possibility described above.

Each line below has its own urgency, and the pregnancy lines keep the wording and the routing used across this site. If something in your hands or your pregnancy frightens you and it is not on the list, contact your maternity team anyway. That is what they are for.

Related exercise programs

Warning signs

Get emergency help now

Emergency: new problems walking, for example your legs feel stiff, heavy or weak or you have become unsteady on your feet, new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or hands that suddenly become clumsy, for example you can no longer do up buttons. Call emergency services straight away. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
Emergency: any sign of a stroke, even if it goes away. That means a face that droops on one side, an arm you cannot lift or keep up, slurred or muddled speech, weakness or numbness on one side of your body or face, sudden blurred vision, double vision or loss of sight, trouble swallowing, sudden dizziness with unsteadiness or falling over, a sudden severe headache, or a sudden fall where your legs give way but you do not black out (a drop attack). Call emergency services straight away.

Get help now, day or night

A severe headache that does not go away with simple painkillers, vision problems such as blurred vision or flashing lights, pain below your ribs, heartburn that does not go away with heartburn medicines, sudden swelling of your face, hands or feet, being sick, or feeling very unwell. Contact your maternity unit, midwife or GP straight away, or NHS 111 in the UK if you cannot reach them. Pre-eclampsia can develop in the days or weeks after the birth, and it needs checking immediately. The same applies to a headache after an epidural or spinal anesthetic that gets worse when you sit or stand up and eases when you lie down. Call emergency services if you have a fit (seizure), or a headache came on suddenly and is very severe. Call emergency services too if you have a headache with a stiff neck and either a high temperature or bright light hurting your eyes, as this can be meningitis.
You are pregnant and notice bleeding or fluid leaking from your vagina, regular painful tightenings, tummy pain that does not settle when you rest or comes with lower back pain, or a change in your baby's usual movements, such as moving less than usual. Stop and contact your midwife or maternity unit straight away. Do the same for a severe headache, problems with your vision such as blurring or flashing lights, pain just below your ribs, or sudden swelling of your face, hands or feet, which can be signs of pre-eclampsia. Call emergency services if the bleeding is heavy, the tummy pain is severe, bleeding or tummy pain comes with pain in your shoulder or feeling sick, faint or dizzy, or a headache comes on suddenly and is very severe.

Get help today

Numbness or tingling in both hands together with hands that have slowly become clumsy, for example trouble doing up buttons or dropping things. Get medical advice the same day. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck (cervical myelopathy) rather than a problem at the wrist. If the clumsiness or numbness gets worse quickly, call emergency services straight away.

Book an appointment

Numbness in the hand that is there all the time, the fleshy muscle at the base of your thumb looks flatter or thinner than on the other hand, or your thumb is getting weaker and you keep dropping things. See a doctor within a few days rather than waiting for it to settle. If the weakness is getting worse from day to day or spreads beyond the thumb, get medical advice the same day. In long-standing cases the nerve can be damaged for good, and surgery may be recommended to prevent that.

Common questions

Does carpal tunnel go away after the birth?

Often it eases, and often is not the same as always. The NHS says carpal tunnel syndrome sometimes gets better by itself in a few months, particularly when pregnancy is the reason for it, and that is the hopeful half of the answer. The other half comes from the follow-up studies. An Italian study followed 63 pregnant women and gave no treatment for the hand symptoms: 54 percent of those who had carpal tunnel symptoms in pregnancy still had them at one year, and the ones whose symptoms had started earlier in pregnancy were less likely to improve after delivery (Padua 2002). A systematic review of six studies reported symptoms persisting in more than half of women at one year and in about 30 percent at three years (Padua 2010). Many women do get better, some of them within weeks, and a real group does not. If yours have not settled, that is a reason to be assessed, not a sign that you did something wrong.

Can I wear a wrist splint for carpal tunnel while I am pregnant?

A night splint, sold in some countries as a night brace, is the usual first step for carpal tunnel syndrome, and nothing in the NHS advice we read treats pregnancy as a reason to avoid one. The NHS describes wearing it at night to hold the wrist straight, and says you may need it for up to 6 weeks before it starts to feel better, which is worth knowing before you decide it has failed after three nights. Fit decides whether it helps, and some shop-bought ones hold the wrist tipped back instead of straight. The main carpal tunnel page covers the fit check and what the evidence says about splints, and why carpal tunnel is worse at night and how to sleep covers wearing one in bed. If it leaves a mark on your skin, or your fingers look swollen or feel more numb with it on than without it, loosen the straps, and if that does not settle within a few minutes, take it off for the rest of the night and get the fit checked before you wear it again. Ask your physio, physical therapist, midwife or doctor to look at it. Swelling in pregnancy keeps changing, so a splint that fitted a month ago is worth rechecking rather than assuming.

What hormone causes carpal tunnel in pregnancy?

No source we could read names one, so we are not going to. What has been measured is the link with fluid: in 639 pregnant women followed through pregnancy, those reporting carpal tunnel symptoms reported significantly more fluid retention than those who did not, and more fluid retention through pregnancy went with higher odds of symptoms (odds ratio 1.8, 95 percent confidence interval 1.5 to 2.1) (Meems 2015). OrthoInfo puts it as hormonal changes in pregnancy causing swelling that presses on the nerve, without naming a hormone, and that is as far as the sources we can read take it.

Can I have a steroid injection or surgery for carpal tunnel while pregnant or breastfeeding?

That decision belongs to the people looking after your pregnancy and to the specialist they refer you to, and this page is not going to weigh it for you. Steroid injection and carpal tunnel release are both used for carpal tunnel syndrome outside pregnancy, and the main carpal tunnel page sets out the trial evidence for each. OrthoInfo describes the operation as cutting the stiff band that forms the roof of the tunnel (the transverse carpal ligament), which makes the tunnel bigger and takes the pressure off the median nerve, so it is the pressure that is treated rather than the nerve repaired. Whether either is appropriate while you are pregnant or breastfeeding depends on how severe your symptoms are, how far along you are, and judgments about you and your baby that only your own team can make. Ask your midwife, obstetrician or doctor, and tell whoever is advising you that you are pregnant or breastfeeding, every time, including the clinician who offers you an injection.

Why do I have carpal tunnel in both hands?

Because what has changed is not local to one wrist. Fluid retention in pregnancy affects the whole body, and both wrists have the same narrow tunnel with the same nerve running through it, so symptoms turning up on both sides is no surprise. One hand is often worse than the other. There is a reason this is worth mentioning to your midwife or doctor rather than filing away: numbness in both hands with hands that have slowly become clumsy can point to the neck rather than the wrists, and doctors writing about compression of the spinal cord in the neck say that in their own clinical experience people with it are often first diagnosed and treated for carpal tunnel syndrome, especially when both hands are affected (Davies 2018). That is uncommon, it is checkable, and it is on the warning list on this page with its own urgency.

References

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Padua L, Aprile I, Caliandro P, Mondelli M, Pasqualetti P, Tonali PA; Italian Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Study Group. Carpal tunnel syndrome in pregnancy: multiperspective follow-up of untreated cases. Neurology. 2002;59(10):1643-1646. https://doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000034764.80136.ef
Padua L, Di Pasquale A, Pazzaglia C, Liotta GA, Librante A, Mondelli M. Systematic review of pregnancy-related carpal tunnel syndrome. Muscle and Nerve. 2010;42(5):697-702. https://doi.org/10.1002/mus.21910
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Davies BM, Mowforth OD, Smith EK, Kotter MR. Degenerative cervical myelopathy. BMJ. 2018;360:k186. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k186
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Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-23.

This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.