Nearly every pregnant woman is told some version of the same thing: the aching pelvis, the shooting sciatic nerve, the grinding SI joint.
That’s just pregnancy. Wait it out. It’ll pass after the baby comes.
Dr. Brandie Keates has spent more than two decades refusing to accept that answer.
“Common does not mean inevitable, and it does not mean untreatable,” she says. “When a provider tells a pregnant woman ‘that’s just part of it,’ what they’re really communicating is that they don’t have a solution. I do.”
“Pregnancy pain is common. It is not normal,” according to Dr. Brandie Keates, owner of the Bloom Sanctuary in Paoli.
At the Bloom Sanctuary, Dr. Keates practices what she calls The Bloom Philosophy, a specialized standard of prenatal care built on the same clinical precision applied to elite athletes.
The reasoning is direct: a pregnant body undergoes extreme physiological change. The pelvis shifts. The center of gravity moves. Ligaments loosen and load transfers in ways that would send a sports medicine team into action for any other patient.
So why are pregnant women routinely told to just wait it out?
Dr. Keates began her career as a paramedic before becoming a sports chiropractor. She trained herself to see the body through a different lens: not “does it hurt?” but “what is breaking down mechanically, and why?”
Her own difficult pregnancies made that framework personal. She knew what it felt like to hurt and be told it was normal. To ask for help and be sent home with nothing.
That experience didn’t just shape her practice; it drove her to build something better.
Conditions Bloom Sanctuary addresses that are often left untreated:
- Pubic symphysis pain
- Sciatica during pregnancy
- Round ligament pain
- SI joint dysfunction
- Pelvic instability
- Postpartum recovery
The Bloom Philosophy now extends beyond Bloom Sanctuary’s walls.
Dr. Keates trains other providers, including OB-GYNs, midwives, and chiropractors, to see pregnancy the same way, with the goal of making a prenatal chiropractic referral as routine as any other specialty referral.
“I want every pregnant woman to have a full team in her corner,” she says.
For the women who walk through Bloom Sanctuary’s doors, that team starts here, at a practice that was built, from the beginning, with them in mind.
Bloom Sanctuary • Paoli, PA
Ready to feel better during your pregnancy?
Bloom Sanctuary serves pregnant women and new mothers across Chester County and the Main Line. Dr. Keates and her team are accepting new patients at their Paoli location.
Book an appointment at Bloom Sanctuary
