By seeing a pelvic floor therapist before pregnancy, you can learn how to train your body for upcoming changes. After pregnancy, it can help you learn how use the muscles that have been stretched, strained, and weakened because of hormones, labor, and birthing process. This is especially important therapy for your abdominals, hips, and low back muscles.
Having this physical therapy helps you to become better aware of the muscles involved during the birthing process by:
- Giving you tools to better relax the muscles
- Safely improving abdominal strength to push and help reduce or prevent separation of abdominal wall.
- Learning better breathing techniques in coordination with pelvic floor relaxation, mobility in your hips and pelvis.
A post-partum pelvic floor consult is recommended to help mothers re-train their pelvic floor muscles to avoid future incidences of urinary and fecal stress incontinence and painful intercourse. It also helps retrain the abdominal wall. Post-partum pelvic floor physical therapy assesses positioning during breastfeeding to avoid neck and shoulder problems, as well as baby-carrying techniques to avoid carpal tunnel symptoms, and pelvic or low back pain.