WellMom pre- and postnatal physiotherapy
WellMom physiotherapy services offer information, treatment, and support throughout your pregnancy as well as the crucial postnatal recovery phase.
Prenatal physiotherapy
The incredible transformation of your body around your growing baby brings change to your entire movement system – the way your joints move, your habitual postures and movement patterns, and new demands on your muscles to adapt. Your lungs don’t have space to expand, which changes the way you breathe, and neither does your bladder, which places more demand on your pelvic floor muscles!
The continual change and adaptation is complex and unique to your body, starting from the first trimester.
Prenatal physiotherapy can help you navigate the physical changes and challenges of your pregnancy. In addition to providing treatment for pain relief, WellMom is a place where you can ask questions, get relevant information, practical solutions and support. Learning about your body can help you prepare for your delivery and a facilitate a smoother recovery.
Treating pain in pregnancy
Physiotherapy provides safe treatment and effective relief from musculoskeletal pain during pregnancy. Gentle manual therapy techniques are used to correct misalignment, restricted joint mobility, muscle spasm and ligament tension. Corrective exercises help you regain joint stability, and reduce strain on tendons and ligaments, while external supports such as strapping or maternity belts can be excellent management tools.
A holistic approach can be the best way to support a Mom through her pregnancy. WellMom services achieves by working within a network of Healthcare Professionals, including specialist Doctors, Biokineticists, Psychologists, and others trained in prenatal health and exercise.
Managing incontinence and other pelvic problems in pregnancy
Throughout your pregnancy, you can expect normal changes in the look, feel and function of your . Maintaining your best function and comfort is so important.
Common pelvic issues during pregnancy are a result of the pressure on your pelvic organs and your pelvic floor, and the changes in their fascial support. These can be stress urinary incontinence, managing constipation and haemorrhoids, or experiencing discomfort during intercourse. Physiotherapy can help address or best manage these problems by giving an understanding of the changes and finding effective management strategies. This process will also help you prevent repetitive strain on your pelvic floor and facilitate your postnatal recovery.
Pelvic Floor Muscles and Kegel’s Exercises
Pregnancy is often the first time we pay attention to our pelvic floor muscles (PFM). And it presents the ideal time to connect and perfect how they work. The increasing weight of the pregnancy resting on the pelvic floor, with more fascial laxity, means there is more demand on the muscles to provide optimal support and continence.
While this becomes particularly important to Mom’s who are preparing for a vaginal delivery and good recovery, it is as relevant to Mom’s who will be delivering by caesarean section.
The collective role of the pelvic floor muscles is to support the pelvic organs (bladder, uterus and rectum) when we are upright, especially when lifting, straining or doing impact activities; help maintain continence; play a key role in core stability; and enable pleasurable sex. It’s clear that every woman should be able to connect with their PFM and perform a Kegel’s exercise correctly!
What is the correct way to do a ‘Kegels exercise’? It is the ability to independently contract the pelvic floor muscles, without compensation from other muscles. To do this first requires the ability to relax these muscles. Their action needs to meet the demands of life, for example – short and quick high effort contractions, and controlled longer, lighter efforts. If you are not confident you can gain certainty by checking and learning at a WellMom physiotherapy appointment.
Postnatal physiotherapy
Spontaneous healing happens in the first 6 weeks post-delivery. This means that by this point your reproductive organs will have returned to their normal size, your diastasis will have reverted to the point it will close itself, your pelvic function and feel will be back to normal, and pain or discomfort resolved.
This process however does not always run its course perfectly, and research has shown us that problems that persist beyond 6 weeks post-delivery will need help to return to normal. You are not alone if you are experiencing persisting problems such as a weak and ‘pregnant-looking’ tummy, unusual bladder habits, even slight incontinence, discomfort or heaviness within your pelvis, uncomfortable intercourse, neck, back or pelvic pain, and challenges with returning to your usual exercise.
WellMom Postnatal physiotherapy service is well equipped to provide you the appropriate care you need to recover well. Carmen’s approach and treatment integrates her knowledge of this unique phase of change with Woman’s and Pelvic Health physiotherapy, Musculoskeletal and Sports physiotherapy.
It is with a sincere appreciation for the realities and responsibilities that come with caring for a newborn that you are supported in your recovery! Treatment and rehabilitation are brought into your every day life, with self-management strategies and corrected movement patterns. So you get stronger and improve on the go, even when you don’t have the time or energy for your dedicated exercise sessions. It can be years later that it becomes the right time for you to address a persisting postnatal concern. It’s never too late.
Your baby has arrived! Now what? Discover what you need to know for your first 6 weeks postpartum.
Download the recovery guide filled with helpful resources, so you can plan now and refer back after baby arrives. When you sign up, you’ll also get WellMom updates and helpful resources for moms to get strong and healthy.
WellMom services
The heartbeat of WellMom is to help your body heal well after pregnancy, to enable you to thrive in motherhood, womanhood, and in living the healthy life you want.
The WellMom Postnatal assessment, from 6 weeks post delivery
This assessment is relevant for every Mom, to get information on how your body has healed. It answers questions such as ‘how do I know my body has fully recovered?’, or ‘is this a normal postnatal problem, and will it fix itself?’ The assessment checks the structures that were changed most by the pregnancy – your abdominal wall, pelvic floor, spine and pelvis, and pelvic function. It gives you clarity on any problems that may need to be addressed, direction on a managing these, and guidance on safe return to exercise and high impact training, including running.
Guided Recovery for specific concerns
- Diastasis Rectus Abdominis (DRA) assessment and management (from 6 weeks post delivery). This assessment is the crucial first step in knowing how to facilitate your healing. It is specific and objective, and directs a clear path to restoring a functional abdominal wall.
- Recovery after Vaginal Delivery (from after your Midwife or Gynae check) –
This starts you off with safe early restorative movement, or the early management of an injury, and takes you through checks which sets you up for your best recovery. - Recovery after C-section (from 2-4 weeks after your delivery) – This starts you off with appropriate and safe restorative movement to ease your body and facilitate your recovery, and enabling a graded return to exercise after your 6 week check. You will learn how scar tissue heals, and how to minimise restrictions safely and effectively.
- Recovering from pregnancy or delivery complications – Regaining strength and returning to exercise after a complicated pregnancy, delivery with trauma, or postnatal complications can be hard. By meeting you where you are at, and creating a plan that you can easily implement, you will be supported you to achieve your goals and the ability to exercise for your holistic health and well-being.
Treatment for pain or problems
- Relief of neck, back and pelvic pain.
- Caesarean section scar management.
- Blocked milk ducts and non-infected mastitis, with ultrasound and laser therapy.
- Restoring optimal function and comfort from pelvic problems such as problematic bladder habits, incontinence, haemorrhoids, pelvic organ prolapse, and uncomfortable intercourse.
Take this quiz
These are clues that your body has not recovered optimally, which is so important for your healthy menopausal and post-menopausal pelvic function.
How do I know I need postnatal physiotherapy?
- Discomfort with intercourse
- Difficulty doing a sit-up, seeing a midline ‘bump’
- Unusual bladder habits
- Any incontinence
- Discomfort with intercourse
- Restrictions or sensitivity around c-section scar
- Heaviness or pain in your pelvis, ‘things not feeling the way they used to’
- Persistent poor posture and back pain