Pelvic Floor... to squeeze or not to squeeze during pregnancy

"I read I shouldn't do pelvic floor exercises when pregnant"...
"I've heard doing them will prevent me from birthing my baby vaginally"...
"it will cause me to tear more"...
"doing them will make my pelvic floor muscles tight"…

These are very common concerns and questions we get asked all the time, so let's look a little bit further into what the research actually says.

It has been shown correctly performing pelvic floor exercises during pregnancy will reduce the risk of urinary incontinence in later pregnancy by 62% and at 3 - 6 months postpartum by 29% (Woodley et al. 2017).

There is no research indicating pelvic floor exercises cause more tearing, in fact quite the opposite. A study has shown a combination of pelvic floor exercises and perineal massage from 32 weeks onwards had significantly lower rates of episiotomies, 3rd or 4th degree tears, postpartum pain and required less pain relief in the postpartum period (Leon-Larios et al. 2017).

Interestingly, these magic pelvic floor exercises may also be effective at reducing the first and second stages of labour, however further research needs to be carried out (Du et al, 2015). With no harm from carrying out pelvic floor exercises why wouldn't you want to speed up labour and delivery, even just a teeny weeny bit! Stats show the average labour (early and active) can be anywhere around 17 hours.

If you are contracting and relaxing your pelvic floor muscles correctly, it is impossible that you will make those pelvic floor muscles tight. Therefore, we recommend you get your lovely pregnant bodies to a women's health physiotherapist, we will assess your pelvic floor muscle status via a vaginal examination to ensure you are contracting and relaxing the muscles correctly and your program is at a level that is challenging for you.

There you have it ladies, it's seems its a YES to squeeze!

Always remember an individual assessment will always trump generic advice ladies.

Ladies who experience painful intercourse, difficulty using tampons or have a history of painful PAP tests may indeed have pelvic floor muscles that are not fully relaxing, and pelvic floor 'down training' may initially be required prior a strengthening program.

If you would like to book in to see one of our qualified women's health physiotherapists please call us on 02 9388 9093.