What Does It Look Like to Rehabilitate One's Postpartum Body?

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What Does It Look Like to Rehabilitate One's Postpartum Body?

It dawned on me recently that I should view my pelvic floor injury from giving birth in a similar way: rehab the heck out of it, and do maintenance when it acts up!

Coming to this revelation took self-reflection. I resented the idea of perpetual maintenance of my pelvic floor. Why can't it just work? I also resisted viewing my experience giving birth as "traumatic" or that it injured me. Those words "injury" and "trauma" are so loaded, especially when it comes to the act of giving birth.

But, then I realized, I don't have to view giving birth as "either/or." Birthing my son was an intense, emotional, difficult, easy, magical, real, out-of-body, in-the-body experience. Regardless of what emotion I attach to the experience, the reality is that I did sustain a pelvic floor injury.

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When Childbirth Scars Are More Than Skin Deep

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When Childbirth Scars Are More Than Skin Deep

Sometimes childbirth scars us, physically and emotionally.

These two kinds of scars seem inseparable from one another.

For me, I didn’t know which one came first, but I knew that as long as my physical issues remained I suffered emotionally.

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Finding a Pelvic Physical Therapist: Where Do I Even Start?

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Finding a Pelvic Physical Therapist: Where Do I Even Start?

It took me seven months after giving birth to get myself to see a pelvic physical therapist (PT). But I should have gone much sooner. Perhaps around the six-week postpartum mark.

Instead I suffered more than half a year with a wobbly back, unstable-feeling hips, back and shoulder pain, vaginal heaviness, and incontinence (urinary, gas, and ocassionally fecal). I hoped it would all go away on its own since, well you know, childbirth is natural.

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Rehab for Your Postpartum Vagina. It's a Real Thing, and It Makes a Lot of Sense.

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Rehab for the vagina???

Yup. It's just like it sounds. Rehabilitation for your vagina and its surrounding region.

Okay. Perhaps it's a little more involved than I'm letting on. Often times pelvic physical therapy (PT) requires internal work (anal and or vaginal).

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