Navigating Postpartum: Common Pelvic Floor Symptoms to Watch For 
As you embark on your recovery postpartum, it’s important to be aware of some common pelvic floor symptoms that might arise after giving birth. It’s a crucial aspect of postnatal recovery; understanding what’s normal can help you take the best care of yourself and know when to seek help.
Here are a few symptoms you might experience:

1. Urinary Incontinence: Leakage when you sneeze, laugh, or exercise is more common than you might think. It’s often temporary but can be managed with specific exercises and therapies.
2. Pelvic Pressure or Heaviness: A feeling of heaviness or pressure in the pelvic region can be a sign that the pelvic organs need more support from the pelvic floor muscles. 
3. Painful Intercourse: Discomfort during or after sex can occur due to changes in your pelvic floor muscles, sensitive scarring or dryness 
4. Difficulty with Bowel Movements: Straining or discomfort while going to the bathroom may be related to the pelvic floor. Ensuring a balanced diet and staying hydrated can support bowel health.
5. Pain: Pelvic pain may continue after pregnancy and is treatable with physiotherapy. Scars (either c-section, episiotomies and tears) can all become hypersensitive, making movement uncomfortable. Physios can provide holistic scar therapy to address scar sensitivity and scar aesthetics. 

Remember, these symptoms are common, and there’s no need to suffer in silence.  Seeking help from a pelvic floor specialist can make a big difference. Your body is amazing, and with the right support and self-care, you’ll be on the path to recovery.. 

Women's health physios do not just teach kegels! And this list is not exhaustive. These are just some of the most common problems I see in my clinic each week.

You can get a referral via your GP for NHS physio or there is a large private network of physios in the UK, which accept self referral. You can book an appointment with our clinic by clicking here ​

If your pelvic floor rehab doesn't include some kind of glute strengthening, now is the time to get started! Strong glutes allow your pelvic floor to focus on what it's best at - supporting your pelvic organs and keeping you continent! 

I was delighted to produce this infographic for the POGP journal to support Christien Bird's presentation at the POGP conference last year. 

The presentation by Christien covered many different aspects of menopause management but the three key elements that all women need are good sleep, good diet and regular exercise. 

There is lots of confusing information out there, especially about diet in menopause. But the take home from the presentation was this: Manage your blood sugar levels. The easiest way to do this is through eating a combination of protein and complex carbohydrates. 

There is a tendency for women to "go to the mat" in the peri/post menopausal years. Whilst there are lots of benefits to doing lower impact mat based exercise, the benefits or doing a mixture of exercise types (including resistance and higher impact) are incredibly important for optimising muscle mass and bone density. Variety is key! 

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The boat in the dock theory (Delancey et al) is a way of illustrating the relationship between the pelvic organs (the boat) pelvic floor (sea), ligaments (ropes) and prolapse.
A weak pelvic floor doesn't cause a prolapse. But over time not having that support puts more strain on the other support systems, which in turn can cause more stretching or damage to the support system.
The best approach is to always maintain a strong pelvic floor. If you then stretch or injure any of the connective tissue supports (eg through pregnancy or childbirth), you've still got some solid muscular support.
If you've already gott a prolapse and haven't had any pelvic floor strengthening, hopefully you can see from this image why it's so important! ​

The impact of a tight or hypertonic pelvic floor isn't limited to the pelvis area. 
Whist a tight pelvic floor can cause symptoms such as incontinence, painful sex and pelvic pain, the effects can be more far reaching.

The pelvic floor is the floor of your core; tightness here will impact other elements of the core system, such as the diaphragm. If the diaphragm becomes tense, this will impact on how optimally the chest expands and contracts with breathing.

Our bodies are linked via a support system called fascia. This is connective tissue that runs throughout the body. Because fascia links diffrent areas of the body together, tension in one place can lead to tension in another. For this reason it is not uncommon to experience jaw tension alongside a tight pelvic floor.