5 Benefits of Pelvic PT While Pregnant - Episode 9
In this episode, I will discuss the 5 benefits of Pelvic Physical Therapy while pregnant.
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Dr. Kari: Welcome to the Morone Pelvic Health Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Kari Roberts. On this show, we will be discussing a variety of things regarding your pelvic health. These conversations will be a mix of education, personal experiences, and a blend of tips you can apply to have a healthier pelvis. The goal of this show is to normalize conversations around pelvic health and help women stop suffering in silence. Welcome back. It's been a while. I am a solopreneur. My disclaimer is I do things when it feels right, and I'm really trying to watch what I'm doing as far as my energy and my time management and making sure I'm not overdoing myself. So I took a couple of weeks off. I was a little bit under the weather, so my voice sounded a little shaky. I've been dealing with some migraines. The weather has not been friendly here with me down in Georgia this summer, and so it just felt like I needed to take a rest. But I feel rested, I feel rejuvenated. And I wanted to jump back into the podcast talking about benefits that you can get by having physical therapy, primarily pelvic floor physical therapy while you're pregnant and before you give birth. I get asked this a lot of times, mostly from women that have already had a baby that might have had some challenges afterward. And they're like, could this have helped me before I was pregnant? Or excuse me, before I gave birth? The short answer is yes. There are tons of benefits by having pelvic physical therapy prior to giving birth. Regardless if it's a vaginal birth or a C section, there are tons of benefits, and I just wanted to go through five. So I put this into five buckets. I'll tell you the buckets. We'll dive a little deep. We'll do a summary. So the five things that I think are most beneficial is you have a professional to ask questions to consistently. You get guidance on what to do and not to do. You learn exercises that can help you. You get lots of education, and you get help with your posture. So that's it in a nutshell. Now to dig a little bit deeper questions week over week. The body changes, the baby is growing, and things shift and shift and change and do all those things. If you're a mom, you know what that feels like. I'm not a mom, so I'm not speaking from personal experience, but you might have a little question here or a little question there. And I've had some patients tell me they felt comfortable asking me a question because they felt when they went to the doctor, they didn't see the physician as frequently, and so they really wanted to keep that time for really intense overarching concerns. Well, having pelvic physical therapy ongoing throughout your duration of your pregnancy is key because you build up that rapport. You can ask those random questions. Every pregnancy is different. So if you're a first time mom, you might have a different experience from friends or family that share their experience. But also, if you're not a first time mom, this pregnancy might be different than the last one because everyone is different. And it's nice to have a professional in your corner that can answer those questions and keep your mind at bay as you are progressing through your pregnancy. Number two, guidance. There are many things that you should be doing that can help you, and there's some couple of things that you shouldn't be doing. And a pelvic physical therapy does a full assessment with your body and your strength and your posture, and he or she can tell you specifically what would be best for your body. And we are specialists in bones and joints, and that's our zone of genius. So I would much rather have you take advice from things to do and not to do, from an exercise professional like us, as opposed to someone else that might be a little bit more medical or a little bit less understanding of bones and joints. The third reason is you gain exercises. You will be taught things specifically to do. You'll get some homework, you'll learn how to do stretches, you'll learn how to do strengthening. And as your body changes and as your tolerance and your pain changes, those exercises that we help you to do or instruct you to do can also change with your pregnancy. It's not going to be a one and done, do this for nine months and then we'll see you later. No, as the belly gets bigger, as things change, those exercises can change in real time, which is so helpful for you. Number four education. We spend a lot of time on education, teaching you how to bend and how to lift safely. We're not looking for perfection, but we want to help you exercise safely. We want to help you learn how to manage pressure. We want to help you learn what things can contribute to having vaginal scarring and what things could potentially contribute to having AB separation and what things you can do to minimize that. We also help you understand if your birth plan is a vaginal birth. Here are some stretches and things to help maybe reduce tearing or prep your pelvic floor for that experience. Or if your birth plan is a C section, then we can give you other things to help you manage the integrity of your abdominals also help you with recovery, things like that. So there's just so many things that we can educate you with. Education will probably be the overarching benefit because I think every other bucket kind of falls under education. We teach you a lot of things with hands on work, soft tissue work, scar, massage, massaging to prep, just all kinds of things that we can do. And the fifth thing is posture, because as your belly grows, there are some changes. Some of them can be pretty significant. In the spine, the way that you breathe can be altered because you've got so much mass in the lower abdomen, it's hard to get a deep breath. So we can help you with overcoming that kind of working around that. Until you have the birth of your baby. We can help you overcome things that might be a challenge with low back pain, mid back pain, neck pain, tingling in the arms and legs, and all kinds of things that could potentially happen during your pregnancy. So it's just nice to have that input from a professional. There's so much benefit from all kinds of things during pregnancy, be it yoga, Pilates, the list goes on and on. But these are really specific for physical therapy, and I think anyone that is having a baby, growing a baby, would benefit. So, just as a review, the five benefits of having Pelvic physical therapy before you give birth and throughout your pregnancy, are you're going to be able to get your questions answered on a consistent basis. You're going to get guidance that changes in real time as your body changes. You're going to learn exercises, stretches, and strengthening things to prep you for the birth of your baby. You're going to receive lots of education, and you're going to learn how to manage your posture throughout the growth of your baby and the progression of your pregnancy. So thank you so much for tuning in and I'll be back with another episode next week. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Moron Pelvic Health podcast. Please do me a favor and leave a review so that more people can find this content and make sure you like and subscribe yourself so you never miss another episode.