About two years after I originally suffered from a herniated disc, I decided to get pregnant.  Nobody could tell me what my prognosis would be... perhaps I would sail through the pregnancy, perhaps my weakened back would cause me to spend the last trimester in pain and on bed rest.  I took extra precautions to get through the pregnancy with a healthy back.

I was extra diligent in caring for my back during the pregnancy, learning from what healed my back pain when I first suffered from low back pain and sciatica.  I managed to make through the entire pregnancy (and a c-section) with a healthy, pain free (though occasionally stiff) back.  Here's what I did to keep my back healthy during pregnancy:

• I slept on a Memory Foam Mattress Topper, on my side with a pillow between my legs.  When heartburn kept me up at night, I propped myself up with a wedge pillow and put a pillow under my knees.
• With my physical therapist's help, I adapted the exercises from 7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life: How to Rapidly Relieve Back and Neck Pain (and other exercises she recommended) to a standing position.  I exercised every day, alternating between Walking, Pilates, Prenatal Yoga, and Water Exercises.
• A couple of times, I felt like my back started bothering me because of other stresses in my life.  The book Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection was always a great resource at those times
• Towards the very end of my pregnancy, I could really feel the weight of my baby weighing down on my SI joint.  When needed, I wore a comfortable elastic pregnancy brace (but not all the time, because I did not want to become dependant on it)
• I struck a balance between my food and nutrition requirements for pregnancy and what I learned about foods that help reduce back pain.  It turns out that there's a huge amount of overlap (apparently nobody thinks you should sit on the couch eating donuts all day...