Our Pelvic Floor, it affects peeing, pooping, and sex. Now that I have your attention, let’s dive deeper into the female pelvis and better understand what happens after giving birth. Full Circle Yoga recently hosted Shanon DeSalvo, PT, CAPP, Women’s Health Physical Therapist who offered a wealth of knowledge about how the pelvic floor is affected by pregnancy and child birth. Although pregnancy and birth may cause a week pelvic floor for some women, the great news is the woman’s body is amazing and with interventions and exercise can return to having a healthy pelvic floor! Prenatal Yoga and Postpartum Yoga can help support the health of the pelvis through various poses and breath work.
The pelvic floor has multiple layers of muscles that serve very important functions that attach from the pubic bones to the tailbone. There are three layers within the pelvic floor that are often affected after giving birth.
First Layer- Sexual Second Layer- Sphincteric Third Layer- Supportive/Stabilizing
Pregnancy can create pressure, pain, stretching, weakness, prolapse, and incontinence due to the physical changes the body must make to grow a little human. While sharing and talking about the challenges of peeing, pooping, and painful sex is still too much of a taboo topic, the statistics show that women are not alone in experiencing this postpartum challenge. Fortunately, there are more specialists going into the field of women’s health to break down the barriers and support the health and wellness of women.
Pelvic Physical Therapy is one modality that is becoming more recognized with excellent results. Pelvic PT for pregnant women offers various forms of exercise, belts/binders, education around posture and body mechanics, and education around labor and delivery preparation. Pelvic PT can check for spinal alignment and evaluate the pelvic floor in preparing for labor and delivery.
Shannon recommends joining a prenatal yoga class, yay! Prenatal yoga poses such as modified cat/cow, child’s pose, stabilization poses help support and strengthen the core as well as strengthening and relaxing the pelvic floor. She recommends stretching everyday.
PT for the postpartum woman can help detect Diastasis Recti , a fairly common condition of pregnancy and postpartum in which the right and left halves of Rectis Abdominis muscle spread apart at the body’s mid line fascia, the linea alba. Additionally, Pelvic PT can help retrain the core and address prolapse, along with appropriate exercises and education on body mechanics.
Postpartum exercise like BYOB (Bring Your Own Baby) Yoga and Mama and Little Movers Yoga is a perfect program that places special attention to the pospartum body. With poses such as bridge pose, downdog, happy baby, warrior II, and a supportive shavasana it can strengthen the pelvic floor and realign those body parts in the pelvic floor that shift during pregnancy and birth. Breath work and specific attention to the pelvic floor muscles during a postpartum yoga class can help in postpartum recovery.
Full Circle Yoga KC is family centered yoga studio in Midtown Kansas City specializing in Prenatal Yoga, Baby Yoga, Little Movers Yoga, Little Kids Yoga, Prenatal Partner Yoga, Family Yoga and more.
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