How did melting ice sheets help form the Baltic Sea?

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Map showing the physical features, major cities, and national boundaries around the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and English Channel regions of northern and western Europe. The map highlights coastal countries including the United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia, with sea depths indicated and key islands, peninsulas, and underwater trenches labeled. — Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the English Channel.

The Baltic Sea is a remnant of a larger water-covered region that emerged as the Scandinavian ice sheet retreated toward the Arctic at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch glaciations.1

Approximately 14,000 years ago, ice covered northern Europe as far south as the modern German-Polish coastline. As the ice melted, it created a series of transitional water bodies:

Yoldia Sea: Formed by glacial meltwater around 7700 BCE, this sea stretched from the Skagerrak across southern Sweden to Lake Ladoga.1
Ancylus Lake: By 6700 BCE, as the ice retreated further, this freshwater lake extended from Arctic Sweden and Finland to the southern Baltic region.1

Around 4500 BCE, the sea reached its modern form when a land bridge between the Baltic and North seas was breached, and the Jutland peninsula was fragmented by the formation of The Sound, the Store Strait, and the Lille Strait.1