Pregnancy can have a profound and lasting effect on your body. 

Many women experience physical discomforts postnatally- particularly during the long periods of nursing, sleep deprivation and chasing toddlers around.  It brings me a lot of joy to be able to help women minimise the various musculoskeletal aches, pains and niggles so that you can so you can enjoy your time with your special ones as much as possible.

Sometimes those pains are also internal when someone tries to return to sex or exercise. Pelvic floor physio can assess and treat this.

Having a postnatal check at around 6 weeks regardless of whether it was a vaginal or C-section delivery- being pregnant for 9 months loads the pelvic floor. In pelvic floor physio we can perform an internal vaginal check up on the health and function of not only the muscles, but how the connective tissues and organs are sitting.

It is essential to know is that in the year following a pregnancy there are many subtle changes that occur as tissues re-stiffen up with collagen changes postnatally and the many hormonal changes occur (not to mention life changes).

Some events may put you at risk of more pelvic floor dysfunction or prolapse such as:

• Prolonged labour
• Forceps/ vacuum
• Large babies
• 3^rd and 4^th degree tears

Postnatally if you experience symptoms such as:

• Heaviness, dragging or bulging in the perineal area
• Pain with intercourse
• Vaginal dryness
• Altered sensation or control of the muscles or bladder
• Leaking
• Abdominal separation that concerns you (known as DRAM)

It is a great idea to check in with a pelvic floor physio, particularly when wanting to return to exercise to check up with where your body is in the healing continuum. Remember everything changes. There are measurements we can take to map your progress. And there are many tools other than or as well as pelvic floor exercises that may assist in these symptoms.