All too often women are not adding pelvic floor therapy to their routine until after the baby arrives. This is all backwards, because prevention is the best medicine! Here are my top 4 reasons, as a holistic pelvic floor therapist, that I recommend every pregnant mom work with a pelvic floor therapist.
- Normalize pelvic floor muscle tension- Most women are walking around with tense pelvic floors. During birth your pelvic floor muscles need to relax and yield for the baby to pass through the birth canal. When they do not yield, labor can be more drawn out and pelvic floor injury is more likely. Pelvic floor therapists can assess and treat your pelvic floor muscles to prepare them for yielding during labor!
- Improve hip mobility- Have you ever been in a yoga class and you get to all the “hip openers” and your body goes “OMG, this feels so amazing” or “OMG my hips are so tight”? Birth requires aligned hips that can move in all directions. If you love hip openers, chances are your hips move really great in one or two directions and not so great in other directions. If you have a lot of hip tightness, everything likely needs a bit of work for an optimal birthing experience. Pelvic floor therapists can assess your pelvic mobility and teach you how to achieve improved and balanced pelvic mobility.
- Open Your Energy to Birth- Birth is a subconscious and very spiritual and/or energetic process. Being able to fully surrender to power within your body that you never knew existed is a super power when it comes to birth. Every woman possesses this superpower, yet not every woman understands how to access this super power before she goes into labor. Looking deep into your energy, mindset, and spiritual perspectives around birth is one of the most essential birth preparation steps. Pelvic floor therapists are knowledgeable and attuned to the energy present in the pelvis and can help open these energy channels before birth.
- Optimize alignment of the pelvic structures- Your baby will go through your pelvis to come into the world. A pelvis that is balanced, aligned and mobile will encourage an easier exit. A pelvis that is stiff, stuck, or uneven can disrupt the path in which the baby will follow leading to a more challenging exit. There are manual treatments and movements you can learn in pregnancy to achieve greater balance, alignment and mobility in your pelvis during pregnancy.
BONUS: You have so much more time during pregnancy than you will after birth to take care of your pelvic health AND everything we do together during pregnancy will benefit you in postpartum!
All of these things are addressed when I work with pregnant women and we ideally begin this work by 30 weeks of pregnancy or before if you have pain or undesirable symptoms like leaking. Pregnancy pelvic floor therapy is for women in their 2nd and 3rd trimesters who want to stack the cards in their favor for an easier birthing process with minimized injury to their pelvic floor. I will provide you with your personalized mind-body-soul birth preparation pelvic floor therapy program.
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