Women’s Health article published in Fox News: Why every new
mom needs Physical Therapy
After she gave birth to her son, Valerie Orsoni knew what to
expect: a prescription from her doctor for 12 sessions of Physical therapy to rehabilitate her pelvic floor
muscles.
“Even when you’re a little girl in France, your mom
always tells you to stay stretched and to always tuck in your tummy and
contract your abs. When you do that, naturally it leads to contracting the
perineum,” Orsoni, 45, the founder of Lebodychallenge.com, said.
After the birth of her son, now 19, Orsoni underwent biofeedback, a treatment that uses an electrode or
probe inserted into the vagina to measure the strength of the pelvic floor
muscles and to help ensure that Kegel exercises
are done correctly.
Although she was prepared for it, Orsoni admits she was a
little embarrassed. “At first, it’s pretty surprising. They’re putting
something in your vagina,” she recalled.
Orsoni, who now lives in San Francisco, Calif., said Postpartum rehabilitation is so important in fact that
doctors in France won’t give women the green light to start exercising again
without completing the two-to-three month program.
“The worst thing that you could do would be to go back to
doing regular exercises after giving birth without doing perineum rehab,” she
said.
Rehab for your pelvis and abs:
After giving birth, it’s common for women to deal with
issues like urinary incontinence, diastasis recti—
a separation of the rectus abdominis muscle— and
pelvic pain.
In fact, approximately 85 percent of women have pain the
first time they have sex after childbirth and nearly a quarter of them still do
at 18 months postpartum, a recent study in the journal BJOG found.
“Most moms are in pain after birth and they just figure it’s
common and normal but there is treatment for it. They don’t have to live with
it,” said Marianne Ryan, a Physical therapist in
New York City and author of “Baby Bod: Turn Flab to Fab in 12 Weeks Flat.”
In France and other countries like the Netherlands and
Australia, postpartum Physical therapy is a
common treatment to help women recover from the rigors of childbirth. Yet in
the United States, women have a 6-week postpartum check-up and are told to
resume their normal activities.
“Not only do we do nothing in the U.S., but also if a woman
goes to her physician, particularly her obstetrician, with these complaints
after delivery it’s written off as ‘Well, you just had a baby,’” said Stephanie
Prendergast, co-founder of The Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center in Los
Angeles, Calif. and author of “Pelvic Pain Explained.”
“While that’s true, there are still musculoskeletal
implications that come with both pregnancy, labor and delivery and of course,
C-section,” she said.
Although they might be well-intentioned, OB-GYN’s are not
trained to identify pelvic floor or abdominal problems like physical therapists
are, Prendergast said.
Another issue is that although women are encouraged to do Kegel exercises, doing so can make perineal tears
worse. What’s more, a study in the journal Female Pelvic Medicine &
Reconstructive Surgery found that 23 percent of women who said they knew
how to do Kegel exercises did not do them correctly.
If problems are left untreated, over time they can lead to
low-back pain and hip problems, urinary and bowel function issues such as
urgency, frequency, burning, constipation, anal pain, and infection and pelvic
organ prolapse, a condition in which the bladder, uterus or other organs
descend into the vagina, Prendergast said.
What’s more, studies show that even if women feel fine after
childbirth, it could take between 6 and 10 years until these issues become a
problem.
How Physical therapy can help:
“In an ideal world, everybody should have an evaluation to
identify what their particular issues are and get a specialized home program,”
Prendergast said.
A Physical therapist can help
identify impairments in the tissues, muscles, nerves and joints and evaluate
the abdominal wall and the pelvic floor muscles to determine what has changed
during pregnancy, labor and delivery.
Once the issues are identified, women are given an
individualized program to help the muscles heal, improve urinary, bowel and
sexual function as well as the overall stability of the pelvis so they can do
things like pick up their babies, Prendergast said.
Physical therapists can also
help moms do daily tasks in a way that doesn’t put pressure on the abdominal
muscles, or even teach them how to have a bowel movement without straining the
pelvic floor muscles, Ryan said.
Biofeedback, the therapy
Orsoni used, can help, especially for those women who have recently given birth
and find it hard to pinpoint their pelvic floor muscles. It can also help
identify a temporary neuropathy, or damage along the nerve that controls the
muscles.
“They may need electrical
stimulation to help those muscles fire if the nerve can’t direct the
muscle to do so itself,” Prendergast said.
Caring for a new baby can leave little time for sleep, a
shower or a workout, much less multiple physical therapy sessions. Yet experts
agree it’s one of the best things women can do for their health, both right
after childbirth and in the future.
“Women deserve treatment,” Ryan said. “Your body is not
going to just magically snap back together.”
Compiled for Information and awareness purpose by Physiotherapy
Jobs Portal- www.physiotherapyjobs.co.in -India's
first and exclusive registered Job Portal for Physiotherapists since 2010.
Author: Julie Revelant is a health journalist and a
consultant who provides content marketing services for the
healthcare industry.
