How does Foundations Pelvic Health help me prepare for labor and delivery?
At Foundations Pelvic Health, we are a team of perinatal and pelvic floor physical therapy specialists. We are dedicated to helping women feel empowered throughout their pregnancy and feel prepared for labor and delivery, as well as postpartum recovery!
How does Pelvic Floor PT help?
Pelvic floor therapy can help you maintain appropriate hip and pelvic mobility throughout pregnancy, teach pelvic floor muscle movements, coordinate your breathing for pushing, positioning during labor and demonstrate and teach you how to perform perineal massage to reduce tearing.
The pelvic floor is a set a muscles that we cannot see, so often we depend on just ‘feeling’ what they are doing. Our pelvic floor PTs are able to do an internal vaginal assessment to specifically assess those muscles in order to help you train your pelvic floor for the stages of labor and delivery!
Contrary to popular belief, your pelvic floor does not push out your baby - your uterus actually does! Your pelvic floor has to get out of the way, and it does that by ‘relaxing’. We often think that our pelvic floors have to be squeezing and tightening, but especially during labor, the pelvic floor should be doing the opposite (should be ‘lengthening’ or ‘relaxing’).
At your Foundations Pelvic Health visits:
At your first visit, we will discuss how your pregnancy is going and if you’re having any issues (leaking, painful sex, pelvic pain or heaviness, back pain, core weakness etc). We’ll also talk with you about your birth preferences, hospital and about any other members of your birth support team.
We’ll discuss the anatomy of the pelvic floor and the relevant boney and ligamentous structures - there are a LOT of things involved in this area! An exam will follow - often we will assess your hips/low back/ribs, posture, balance and movements as well!
Then, if appropriate, your pelvic floor physical therapist will perform an internal pelvic floor exam to determine your pelvic floor’s baseline:
muscle tightness
muscle coordination
muscle strength
ability of muscle to relax
coordination with breathing
core & abdominal activation
An internal pelvic floor exam can be quite enlightening as you will be getting real-time feedback on what your pelvic floor is actually doing, as well as finding out what you actually need to be doing. We will be assessing for all the above, but also looking for issues such as prolapse, leaking, heaviness, hemorrhoids etc so that we can best help you to find positions and exercises that do not aggravate those.
Preparing during the 3rd trimester:
During the first two trimesters, we focus on whole-body and pelvic floor strengthening and mobility. Starting in the 3rd trimester of your pregnancy, we change gears to focus on pelvic floor relaxations - the key to start getting your body prepared for delivery. Your pelvic floor PT will also demonstrate and review how to perform perineal massage to help decrease the risk of severe perineal tearing, as well review labor and delivery positions so that you can feel how your pelvic floor might feel in various positions.
Partner Support Visits:
We love when partners come in for a visit! These visits can be so helpful for partners to learn about the pelvic floor, understand more about how your body is changing and how to best support you during labor and delivery. Partners often leave feeling like they’ve learned so much, and have gained confidence in knowing more on how to help during labor and delivery.
Support during pregnancy helps to support postpartum recovery
Our pelvic floor PTs work with women throughout their entire pregnancy to keep you moving and mobile through all the trimesters. We also love to support during your postpartum recovery to help you get back into your usual activities safely!