During April, the team at CCK caught up with Amy, a local business owner and midwife, who specialises in the pre and post birth body with a mix of Yoga and Pilates. ‘Appetence Families’ runs classes and workshops focused on balancing the pelvic floor to make pregnancy and birthing journey as natural, painless and functional it can be.
Amy chatted to our team about some of the wonders of the body and the pelvic floor so with Mother’s Day around the corner and a focus of movement and posture this month, it is the perfect way to harmonise the two and share some worthwhile information.
The pelvic floor is a bed of muscles and ligaments and connective tissue that support the contents of your lower abdomen including bladder, visceral organs and the uterus. These muscles are used during childbirth contracting and relaxing to help with the natural birth of a bub.
The benefits of strengthening your pelvic floor during pregnancy include:
- Being able to relax your pelvic floor during labour leading to a more functional vaginal birth
- Better circulation to the muscles (helps with post birth healing)
- Preventing hemorrhoids during labour
- Preventing constipation post birth
The benefits of strengthening your pelvic floor after giving birth include:
- Prevention of pelvic floor dysfunction.
- Preventing urinary urgency and/or incontinence
- Increase or improve the sensations felt when making love
- Decrease risk of a prolapsed uterus
Everyone has pelvic floor muscles and just like all other muscles in the body they need to be strong and functioning well. This can lead to better urinary and bowel control, decrease in back pain and a better sex life. Researchers have found that improved pelvic floor function helps with quality of life.
One way to find and work your pelvic floor is to imagine that you have to pass gas, and you are trying to hold it in; squeezing the bed of muscles to feel an almost ‘lifting’ like sensation in your pelvis. Hold for 1-2 seconds, then release.
In our office you will hear us talk about the pelvis quite regularly and how it relates to so many other happenings within your being, balancing these muscles can be another piece of the puzzle to helping your body function optimally.
For some exercises to help with movement please go to our website, www.coastchiropractic.com.au and click on Resources. There you will find videos on suggested exercises for different areas of the spine. If in doubt as to which ones would be of most benefit to you, ask your chiro on your next visit.
