Mind your PELVIC FLOOR - With PELVIC ROAR

🚨Pelvic Floor Recovery from the Experts🚨

Every new mother wants her body to feel like her own again after having a baby, but it's more important that you take time to heal first, You only have one pelvic floor which you use daily, so look after it ladies :) 

Pelvic Health Physiotherapists are advising new mums not return to high impact exercise if they are experiencing any urinary or faecal incontinence, heaviness in their vagina, low back or pelvic pain or tummy separation. These are all common but not normal conditions that can be treated by pelvic health physiotherapist. 

Experts say that getting back into high impact exercise after childbirth is putting strain on their already weak abdominal, core and pelvic-floor muscles.

Founder Emma Brockwell from Pelvic Roar  a women’s health physiotherapists who specialises in helping women return to postnatal exercise has launched a campaign to raise awareness of pelvic health. They are calling for closer collaboration between healthcare professionals such as GPs and nurses who come into contact with new mothers, and fitness trainers.

Emma explains ‘Many don’t realise the potentially devastating consequences of not letting the body recover after childbirth,’ 

‘Not a week goes by where I don’t treat at least one woman who has made damage from pregnancy and childbirth worse by returning to high-impact exercise too soon.

‘Exercise such as running puts three times your body weight on your pelvic floor which, if it’s already weak, can lead to a prolapse of the vagina, bladder and/or bowel – where the organ drops down, often into the passage beneath it – months, if not years later,’ she says.

‘Any pregnancy, regardless of the delivery method, puts pressure on the pelvic floor – the muscles that support our pelvic organs and control our front and back passages – for several months, potentially damaging it,’ says Brockwell.

Emma has recently co-authored the first return to Running Postnatal Guidelines alongside Tom Goom  and Grainne Donnelly. They recommend that all women rehabilitate post baby with the help of a pelvic Health Physiotherapist and in general should not consider returning to running until they are at least 12 weeks postnatal. 

A key problem is that, for some women, there are no obvious symptoms of internal damage after childbirth.

‘As a result, many women, fitness trainers and GPs at the six-week post-birth check-up think it’s OK for new mums to start exercising again, not realising the damage they are inflicting on the delicate pelvic organs, bowel and bladder,’ says Brockwell.

So what type of exercise is advised?

The guidelines outline progressions for postnatal exercise that you can adhere to, but always talk to a GP or women's health care professional.

The first few weeks should be about repairing and strengthening your pelvic floor before getting back to intense training.

 References : Pelvic Roar  with Emma & Daily Mail article with Emma 

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