Pregnancy and childbirth are beautiful and fulfilling times in a mother’s life. However, this period can also bring physical challenges. Besides caring for a newborn with little or no sleep, many women develop one or more musculoskeletal issues due to pregnancy and childbirth. Fortunately, there may be an effective solution. Many postpartum conditions can be successfully managed or treated with the help of physical therapy. This document discusses postpartum conditions, physical therapy options, and treatment plans.
Postpartum Conditions
During pregnancy, a woman’s body undergoes many different stresses, including:
- Weight Gain: Gradual weight gain over nine months increases the load on the spine, pelvis, and leg joints. This can significantly alter your posture and place new stresses on these areas.
- Ligament Changes: Pregnancy often affects the body’s ligaments due to hormones that make the ligaments more elastic and relaxed in preparation for childbirth.
- Pelvic Issues: During delivery, significant trauma can occur to the pelvis or reproductive area as the baby’s head and body must pass through a relatively small anatomical space.
Common Diagnoses
- Urinary Incontinence: Many women experience this common problem during and after pregnancy. Up to 30% of women experience this within six months postpartum. This issue is caused by weakened pelvic floor muscles during pregnancy, which remain weak even as the uterus returns to its normal size.
- Low Back Pain: As the baby grows, the abdomen enlarges, stretching and weakening the abdominal muscles. The lumbar curve (lumbar lordosis) becomes more pronounced, causing the lower back muscles to shorten. These changes reduce your core muscles' ability to support the spine, potentially leading to back pain during and after pregnancy.
- Diastasis Recti: When abdominal muscles (particularly the rectus abdominis) stretch during mid and late pregnancy, the connective tissue along the midline (linea alba) begins to widen and separate. Up to 59% of women experience this immediately postpartum. The connective tissue thins and widens, weakening and sometimes tearing, resulting in a noticeable bulge in the middle of the abdomen, especially when the abdominal muscles contract.
- Pelvic Pain or Dysfunction: The pelvic floor muscles at the bottom of the pelvis support the bowel, bladder, and uterus. During pregnancy, the weight of the growing child places excessive pressure on these muscles, causing them to become lax and ineffective. Trauma related to childbirth can further weaken or tear these structures. Postpartum damage to the pelvic floor muscles can cause issues like painful intercourse, sexual dysfunction, pelvic pain, pubic symphysis separation, and even pelvic organ prolapse.
Physical Therapy Options
We recommend our SHEYERA Pelvic Floor Muscle Strengthening Device for postpartum women. Postpartum women often face pelvic floor muscle laxity, affecting their quality of life and potentially leading to urinary incontinence. Our SHEYERA Pelvic Floor Muscle Electric Trainer is designed to address this issue. Using advanced electrical stimulation technology, it automates Kegel exercises, helping you effortlessly strengthen your pelvic floor muscles anytime, anywhere.
SHEYERA Pelvic Floor Muscle Strengthening Device offers the following benefits:
- Efficient and Convenient: Powered by batteries, it triggers pelvic floor muscle contractions through electrical stimulation, making workouts easy and effective anytime, anywhere.
- Comprehensive Treatment: Particularly effective for urge, stress, and mixed urinary incontinence, and helps maintain pelvic floor muscle strength to prevent recurrence.
- Comfortable Experience: With 7 preset programs and adjustable intensity levels from 0 to 99, you can comfortably exercise your pelvic floor muscles while performing other activities (such as watching TV). The probe design prioritizes comfort, ensuring a discomfort-free experience.
- Simple Operation: The LCD display and simple button controls make it easy to adjust the intensity of each program precisely, ensuring optimal exercise results.
- Professional and Safe: We are a US-registered company specializing in postpartum care for women, with all customer services based in the US. If you have any questions after receiving your product, please don't hesitate to contact us.
Using our SHEYERA Pelvic Floor Muscle Electric Trainer can effectively treat various types of urinary incontinence and prevent symptom recurrence. By enhancing pelvic floor muscle strength, you can regain confidence, improve your quality of life, and avoid the inconveniences and embarrassments of daily activities. Choose our pelvic floor muscle trainer to safeguard your health and happiness.
Which Exercises Help Treat Pelvic Floor Dysfunction (PFD)?
Physical therapy exercises focusing on the pelvic floor muscles can help treat many symptoms of PFD, including urinary incontinence, painful or difficult intercourse, and pelvic pain. These exercises often involve Kegel exercises, which teach you to activate and strengthen the critical muscles beneath the bladder, colon, and uterus. Your physical therapist may also use biofeedback machines to help you visualize your muscle contractions and learn how to activate these structures better. Pelvic floor therapy also addresses overly tight or constantly contracted structures, so it’s not always about contracting muscles. Sometimes it’s about learning to relax the muscles.
How Long Should Postpartum Physical Therapy Last?
Depending on the severity of symptoms, postpartum conditions can take some time to start improving. However, physical therapy has been shown to help alleviate some issues, such as pelvic pain, within just five weeks of treatment. Other issues, such as urinary incontinence or pelvic organ prolapse, may take several months or longer to see significant improvement. After a thorough assessment, your physical therapist will be able to provide a more accurate recovery timeline estimate.
The first three months after childbirth are often referred to as the fourth trimester. During this time, it’s important to focus on restoring your health. Postpartum conditions are very common and can often be well managed with conservative measures like physical therapy. It’s crucial to discuss any symptoms with your obstetrician. While it may be easy to focus on your baby’s needs and overlook your own, working with your doctor will help you get on the path to recovery.