Pregnancy can lead to a variety of additional postnatal health conditions for new moms. The most common concerns being back pain, urinary incontinence, and reduced strength and flexibility. As a new mom, it’s important to take care of yourself! Our pelvic floor physiotherapists at Manotick PhysioWorks explain how pelvic floor physiotherapy can help new moms manage, and recover from health issues and concerns.
How Can Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy Help New Moms?
While being a new mom is a wonderful experience in many ways, it can have a number of negative and long-lasting effects on the body. Many new moms simply accept that lower back pain or injuries, urinary incontinence, reduced strength and flexibility, and a weakened pelvic floor are a natural part of pregnancy and the postpartum experience. With increasing knowledge about pelvic health, we know now that this doesn’t need to be the case. Pelvic floor physiotherapy designed for new moms, can help them recover their flexibility, strengthening their pelvic muscles, control over bodily functions, and general health.
What Treatments Can I Expect As A New Mom In Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy?
In your initial assessment, your Manotick PhysioWorks pelvic floor physiotherapist will inquire about what has brought you to pelvic floor physiotherapy as a new mom. Some injuries or concerns may include strengthening your pelvic floor after pregnancy and labour, breastfeeding, back and pelvic pain, urinary incontinence, and more. With this information, they will create a treatment plan to help you address any injuries or concerns.
Your pelvic floor physiotherapist will use a combination of active and passive pelvic floor physiotherapy to build your treatment plan. This may include treatments such as manual therapy, icing and heating, electrostimulation (EMS), or acupuncture. These can help massage your body, increase blood flow, and reduce pain. As well, your pelvic floor physiotherapist can create a custom exercise regimen to help you build strength, and increase mobility.
A few ways postnatal pelvic floor physiotherapy can help new moms return to their daily activities
Manual Therapy For New Moms
Pelvic floor physiotherapy programs for new moms often include manual therapy (hands-on treatment of tissues & joints), which is used by your pelvic floor physiotherapist to treat specific parts of the body. Postnatal manual therapy in particular is used to alleviate lower back and hip pain associated with bearing the weight of a child. It can also help reduce swelling, increase blood flow and circulation, and improve the breastfeeding process. Manual therapy is done during your session by your pelvic floor physiotherapist, who has specialized training to help speed up your recovery process whether it is your low back, pelvic floor, or other areas of your body.
Pelvic Floor Exercises For New Moms
The pelvic floor and its associated muscles bear a lot of extra weight during pregnancy. In addition, hormones released in the body throughout pregnancy encourage the pelvic muscles to relax in preparation for vaginal birth. Both of these factors contribute to a stretching out, and weakening of the pelvic floor throughout pregnancy. This could even lead to injury of the pelvic floor. Postpartum, there are ways that pelvic floor physiotherapy can help new moms strengthen their pelvic floor.
Additionally, the relaxation of the pelvic muscles can lead to new moms often having to contend with reduced control over their bowel movements. This often expresses itself as urinary incontinence. In severe cases, it can develop into lifelong urinary incontinence, or even damage, leading to partial loss of control of the anal sphincter. Our pelvic floor physiotherapists want to help new moms avoid these injuries, or manage them effectively to reduce symptoms long-term.
Our pelvic floor physiotherapists at Manotick PhysioWorks can design pelvic floor physiotherapy treatment programs for new moms. These programs may include a variety of exercises to help recover the health and strength of the pelvic floor, prevent future pain and injuries, and help new moms regain control over their bodily functions. For example, you may have heard of kegels? Kegels are often discussed as a good exercise option for new moms to help strengthen the pelvic floor. However, it's important that you consult a pelvic floor physiotherapist before undertaking any pelvic floor exercises when recovering from pregnancy. Kegels are only one of many different exercises that can help you recover through pelvic floor physiotherapy. For some moms their pelvic floor musculature is too tight and doing more Kegels may be counter-effective. Ensuring you do them the proper way is important to avoid causing further injury to yourself.
Acupuncture For New Moms
As a new mom, it's not just your physical body that went through a transformation, but your emotional well-being can be impacted too. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health as a new mom and should be prioritized too! Our pelvic floor physiotherapists at Manotick offer both prenatal and postnatal acupuncture and dry needling. Acupuncture and dry needling can help new moms with blood circulation, relaxing/resetting tight muscles, and promoting healing and recovery from the pregnancy process.
This treatment is most effective when done in combination with other pelvic floor physiotherapy treatment and strengthening options. Your pelvic floor physiotherapist will be able to provide you with a comprehensive treatment plan that is customized to your body's unique needs as you work to adjust to your ‘new mom’ life, and general strength and function.
