Boppy Total Body Pillow Review

For our anniversary last month (eek! already a month ago!), Kevin surprised me with one of the pregnancy pillows that I wanted. I mentioned in a previous post that I was deciding between two, which you can read at Week 14: Where have all the Zzzz's gone. He ended up getting me the Boppy Custom Fit Total Body Pillow (purchased at Target).

Now to go ahead and break it to you, this pillow ended up being returned.  I have back pain due to mild scoliosis, and this pillow had me waking up with SEVERE back pain.  I will elaborate more below.

While this one is the cheaper of the two ($54.99 at Target, though of course Hubs somehow got it for $43.99), it was the one I was leaning toward because of the ability to separate it into 3 segments (I'd prefer to use my own head pillow).  I have always slept with a pillow between my legs (I say pillow, I mean Pillow Pet) so I was excited about this.

One thing that I liked about this one is that it allowed me the capability to roll back and forth from one side to the other (because I did not have the head pillow attached).  The leg and stomach segments rolled with me. Here are the recommended ways to sleep with the pillow (sorry, they may be a bit difficult to see, and yes that is my reflection):

The stomach portion really didn't serve a purpose since my belly wasn't big enough to "rest" on it yet, but I kept it attached anyway so I didn't feel like we just bought a leg pillow. It also says you can flip it over to put behind your back, but that just didn't make much sense to me because the middle section is pretty flat. And the bottom portion would be flipped backward. It looks sensible in the picture above, but I can't imagine the stomach portion supporting that much.... but I didn't try it so I can't know for certain.

The leg part of the pillow is pretty long so it extends all the way passed your feet.  Though I think this is what enflamed my back pain. I think the pillow is TOO thick so my hips were pressing my back into the mattress.  This is my best guess anyway. I literally had a hard time getting up my back was in so much pain.

I think they could make the fabric a bit softer (it was rather stiff). But it says it's machine washable, which I would recommend because it had a chemically odor (when I say chemically, I'm referring to the type of smell of a brand new shirt).

Overall I like the concept of this pillow, but I think they have quite a few kinks to work out.  It is a reasonably priced pillow compared to some pregnancy/body pillows (which can be upwards of $100).

I think I'm going to hang my hat on the purchase of a pregnancy pillow.  I've nailed down a pillow regime that has me pretty comfy at night, however has left Kevin with pretty much nothing.