Lots of new moms keep this one to themselves. You sneeze and leak a little. You jump on the trampoline with your older kid and have to run inside to change. Lifting the car seat or the stroller in and out of the trunk feels like your stomach muscles just aren’t there anymore. Your sister or your mom might laugh and say that’s what happens after kids, so you stop bringing it up. We hear about it all the time from moms in Apache Junction, and the good news is that it usually gets better with the right kind of therapy.
Why It Happens
Down at the base of your pelvis, there’s a hammock of muscle, and that’s what keeps your bladder and everything else in place. For nine months it carries a growing baby. Then comes the birth, and whether you pushed for three hours or had a C-section, those muscles and the tissue around them got stretched hard. So afterward they might be weak, or they might be clenched up and sore, or they just don’t fire at the right moment when you sneeze. It’s also really common for the two halves of the six-pack muscle to pull apart, which is called diastasis recti, and that leaves your middle feeling like it has no support.
Signs It’s Worth Getting Checked
Every recovery looks a little different. Still, these are some of the most common reasons moms come see us:
- A little leaks out when you laugh at something on TV or chase the toddler across the yard.
- You get that sudden gotta-go feeling, and the bathroom is just a bit too far away.
- There’s a feeling of heaviness or pressure down low, especially at the end of the day.
- Your belly has a gap or a bulge down the middle when you sit up.
- Sex is painful, or your lower back and hips ache more than they did before.
What Pelvic Floor Therapy Involves
The first visit starts with a conversation. We’ll ask about your pregnancy, your delivery, your bladder habits, and what you want to get back to doing. If you’re comfortable with it, the therapist may do an internal exam to check how the muscles contract and relax, but that’s always your choice, and we’ll explain everything before we do anything.
Then we build a plan. It isn’t just Kegels, and for some moms Kegels make it worse. If your muscles are weak, we’ll work on squeezing. If they’re the tense kind, we’ll spend more time teaching them to let go. Breathing is a bigger deal than people expect, so you’ll learn to breathe low into your belly and ribs while you work. After that, it’s core work and practice with real-life stuff, such as scooping your baby off the play mat, hoisting the diaper bag, or easing back into jogging.
If you’ve been dealing with leaking or a weak core since having your baby, reach out to Modern Medicine of East Mesa, AZ. Our pelvic floor therapists will help you feel strong again.
