Kiddipedia
Last week I saw a new client. Her story (unfortunately) is not unusual. Let’s call her Laura.
Shock was just one of the emotions Laura felt when she felt and saw something push out of her vagina. With help of Dr. Google she diagnosed herself with prolapse and to Laura’s credit, had gone directly to a Women’s Health Physiotherapist. The physio had not only got her pelvic floor on track, but had educated her in the many other facets that make for good pelvic floor function — toileting habits, asked about pelvic pain and sex, explained the many various options available to her now (surgery, pessaries, etc).
Laura had come to see me because she loved exercise and wanted to return to an active lifestyle. Laura is not a crazy A type, I-must-exercise-REALLY-hard-for-it-to mean-anything-sort-of-person. But, now Laura understood that her prolapse affected every physical decision she made, and she wanted to get the right advice about what sort of exercise was good for her now.
And this is her story:
Laura had been a very keen runner and loved attending her local bootcamp twice per week. She went back after the birth of her first child. And she did more than many — she went to the instructor and said, “I have just had a baby and I don’t feel like my pelvic floor is very strong.”
And the response was more honest than most, as he raised his palm to her face and said “Whoa right there! I don’t do THAT sort of stuff.”
And true to his word, he didn’t make any modifications or address her weak pelvic floor in any way, shape or form.
Laura having been shut down didn’t feel confident to bring it up again, but did feel confident that her Instructor had her best intentions at heart and did her best to follow the exercises given. Laura stopped attending when she found out she was pregnant with her second child. Laura was half way into her pregnancy when she physically felt her prolapse.
And thus started her long journey of making the best of her situation. Because for the rest of her life, Laura will forever make decisions (like whether to have more children, how and when to exercise, how to carry out fairly mundane daily tasks), through the prism of her pelvic floor dysfunction.
Having had one or more children is just ONE of the risk factors that make exercise-induced prolapse and exercise-induced incontinence a THING. Also put into the mix age, number of children, family history, what you do for a living… all of these things move you along the scale to be one of the 50% of postnatal women* who will experience prolapse.
And damaging pelvic floor is not just a risk for women… men who push too hard and with inappropriate weight and/or exercise can damage their pelvic floor muscle as well.
Damaging pelvic floor not only affects your urinary and fecal continence, your erection (for blokes), create pelvic or back pain or lead to prolapse (again, this can happen to the blokes too)… but a damaged pelvic floor also affects your self confidence, your self esteem and even your sex drive.
SHAME about incontinence and prolapse is probably the MAIN reason why we don’t have more women going back to their trainers to complain or suing for negligence.
I think it will only be a matter of time before trainers will hear these words:
“You pushed me to prolapse. You pushed me to wet my pants. It is not good enough that YOU DON’T ACCOMMODATE MY PELVIC FLOOR. You modify exercises for those in the group who have back pain or knee pain… why are you ignoring a muscle that makes a whole lot of difference to my bodily functions!”
The biggest health risk to women over 35 is not obesity or smoking… it is inactivity.
And there is nothing like a prolapse or incontinence to keep women inactive. I don’t judge someone’s exercise choice — their favourite activity may be cross fit or it may be couch surfing. Regardless, there are skills that women can learn which can lessen the intra-abdominal pressure involved in both getting off their couch, or performing a box jump and thereby minimise impact on pelvic floor.
You see this is what I do. I help women navigate exercise safely. My goal is to keep women active. I help women become confident ‘body-listeners’ as their body shares with them what is right for them at this stage of their recovery, their monthly cycle and their unique set of circumstances.
Pelvic floor is a muscle rarely spoken about in general Fitness qualifications. Being a mum and a Personal Trainer is not good enough either. Personal experience may only represent a part of the diversity of issues that come with exercising post birth. My advice? Don’t be afraid to ask the questions! Ask to see qualifications or what they have actively done to be educated to work with you.
And if the answers are not to your liking… find someone who knows what to do!
*Statistics from Continence Foundation of Australia
You might also like to read:
Top 10 tips for creating a body positive culture for you and your children
When can women return to high impact exercise after having a baby?
