Your pelvic floor post birth
As someone that suffered a 3/4c tear, Anna knows a thing or two about rebuilding your pelvic floor post birth. Here she shares some ‘need to knows’ and a 5-minute video on how you can rebuild strength in your pelvic floor and the symptoms you should be looking out for that may be common, but not normal.
Who even thinks about the pelvic floor before you become pregnant? For most of us your pelvic floor is a muscle that fires up without even thinking about it, yet when you become pregnant, the load that is placed on your pelvic floor changes things. You go from supporting the weight of a blueberry, to supporting the weight of a lamb! That’s why even if you have a c-section, looking after your pelvic health post birth is still so important.
Even if you have the most blissful of births, your pelvic floor still goes through a trauma. Trauma is one of those words that of course comes with negative connotations, but essentially that is what has happened to the pelvic floor, so it’s important that we treat it as such. The great thing is, and I was recommended this almost straight away even with a 3/4c tear, is pelvic floor exercises are something you can do straight away post birth, and the videos I have on the Bump Haus platform guide you through exactly how.
Pilates 100% helped with my recovery. As a Pilates teacher I guess I had a head start, but I knew the benefits of doing Pilates before I was pregnant, through pregnancy and postnatally too so I really do credit it to me healing so well. You’ll most likely of heard of doing Kegel exercises and there is very much a time and place for these, and we do them on Bump Haus, however there are so many more exercises and things you can do within the Pilates repertoire and empowering yourself with the knowledge around pelvic health, that help rebuild and also relax the pelvic floor.
Symptoms like incontinence are common, but that doesn’t mean they’re normal. Having a child doesn't mean you now have to wee yourself. You can still exercise; cough, laugh, sneeze and carry out daily activities without these symptoms. Often, we joke about not being able to jump anymore because ‘I’ll wet myself’ but that doesn’t have to be the case. There is so much evidence to support doing your pelvic floor exercises and supporting your pelvic health so you can be symptom free, and I’m living proof.
Part of the problem is pelvic health is still a bit of a taboo subject. Let's be honest, talking about wee and poo may be funny, but when it’s yourself involved, you’ll likely resort to “I'd rather not talk about that, so I’ll put up with it”. But thankfully there is so much you can do to help and so much help out there. Our resident Pelvic Health Physio, Sarah Thorne goes into great detail about this in our videos with her, so if you are experiencing symptoms such as incontinence or prolapse, do check those out.
I farted a lot after I gave birth. Sorry if that made you spit your coffee out, but I did, and I couldn’t help it. I’m one of those immature folk that finds farting hilarious BUT doing it in the presence of your husbands' friends without wanting to, was enough to get my pelvic floor into gear. So, if you’re postnatal and want to find out how you can rebuild and help your pelvic health post birth, then take a look at the below 5-minute video. Includes the use of a Pilates Ball.
By Anna Johnson
Intro to Pelvic Floor