If you are expecting your first baby it can be worthwhile to have a pelvic floor assessment sometime between 20 and 30 weeks. This is especially important if you suspect that your pelvic floor is either weak (e.g. urinary incontinence with exercise), or overly tense (e.g. difficulty or discomfort with sex, or with tampons or pelvic examinations before you became pregnant).
Pelvic floor physiotherapy can help you to prepare for baby’s birth by optimising your pelvic floor muscle control. This, along with advice about perineal massage, may help to reduce your risk of a perineal tear during childbirth.
If this is not your first baby, you may have concerns about pelvic floor related problems that have persisted after previous childbirth – things that you never got around to addressing (because a little someone was taking up all your time and attention!). It’s not too late to start improving your pelvic floor, even if another pregnancy is well underway.
After giving birth it is very important to start pelvic floor muscle exercises (gently, so long as there is no pain) as early as the day after baby’s arrival.
If you have had a 3rd or 4th degree perineal tear it is most important to make contact with a well qualified pelvic floor physiotherapist as soon as possible to get started on a guided rehabilitation program. These repairs need special care, so please make contact via email or phone and we’ll plan for you to be seen as soon as possible.
Whatever the type of delivery, a new mum can have concerns about bladder or bowel control, abdominal muscle separation (diastasis recti), recovery from Caesarean section, safe return to exercise, or painful sex. If you have these or other problems, you are welcome to send an enquiry via email or simply call for an appointment in either Bathurst or Orange.