A Strong Pelvic Floor Will Complicate Your Labour!

Whilst I was pregnant, I was religious about doing my pelvic floors and transverse ab exercises. I wanted to give myself the easiest time in labour possible, so I did my exercises 3 times a day every day - and 5 times in the last trimester.

I knew that a weak pelvic floor would lead to stress incontinence, (where you leak urine when you cough, laugh or sneeze, etc), both during pregnancy and after and that was a problem I definitely wanted to avoid!

One day whilst training I got chatting to a couple of ladies in the gym who had children and we got onto the subject of, "your body will never be the same again". We started talking about pelvic floor exercises and they both said to me that my strong pelvic floor would slow down my labour and make delivery difficult!

I asked them why they thought this and they said they'd been told that the pelvic floor was used "to help everything stay closed" and therefore it would work against me when I wanted to push my baby out!

Apparently this was something one of them had read in magazine somewhere and she'd been telling all the pregnant women she knew - me included!

I could see where she'd gotten mixed up. In a way the pelvic floor does help keep everything closed. The pelvic floor is a saddle of muscle that sits like a hammock across the bottom of the pelvis. It has several functions:

1. It helps your bladders stay closed - stopping leaking and incontinence, especially when sneezing or coughing

2. It supports your pelvic organs and the contents of the abdominal cavity and keeps everything in place. Older women with weak pelvic floors can suffer slipping - where the organs slip down and an operation is needed to put everything back in place. (My ex-boyfriends mother had this and it's not pleasant I assure you)

3. It controls wind and your bowel movements

4. It improves your sexual awareness

In pregnancy the pelvic floor is stretched and weakened by the increasing pressure and load of your baby so it is EVEN MORE important to do pelvic floor exercises to maintain its strength and prevent stress incontinence both during and afterwards.

A strong pelvic floor will not hinder labour but in fact it will help in the second stage of labour and will reduce your pushing time - that's got to be good!

A Real Life Example

After I gave birth to River, I had a pretty speedy recovery - I was back training within 10 days of giving birth and I felt pretty strong and in shape. I was still doing my pelvic floors and transverse exercises, but as the weeks wore on and I got more and more tired and sleep deprived, I started to forget to do them. I became very blase about the whole thing, thinking that as I had done so much work already, I didn't need to stay on top of it to keep my pelvic floor at the same level it was.

BIG MISTAKE - BIG - HUGE!!

I had stupidly forgotten, (in my new mum foggy brain), that the pelvic floor is a muscle just like any other...

IF YOU DON'T USE IT - YOU LOSE IT!

I started back at the gym 5 weeks ago and my first foray on the treadmill was not a pleasant one! Within 3 minutes of jogging I had my first experience of stress incontinence! I was severely disappointed in myself. I knew that if I'd have kept up my pelvic floor exercises, that would never have happened.

So now I'm having to work very hard to get it back. So my message to you today is

DO NOT FORGET YOUR PELVIC FLOOR EXERCISES!!!!


Here's some simple exercises you can do:

1. To find your pelvic floor try stopping the flow of urine midway when you go to the toilet. This is what it feels like to contract your pelvic floor.

NB: ONLY DO THIS ONCE! This is just so you know what it feels like to squeeze your pelvic floor. You should not not do this regularly whilst urinating as you may cause urinary tract infections.

2. Now that you know how it feels - contract and hold your pelvic floor for a count of 5 seconds. Repeat 10 times, working up to a set of 20 as you get stronger. Remember to breathe!

3. Imagine your pelvic floor is an elevator. Move your pelvic floor up inside you from floor 1 to 5. Hold for 1 count then descend slowly from 5 to 1.

You will probably find the descent very difficult to control at first. You'll know you are getting stronger when you are able to control the descent better!


Repeat 5 times, working up to a set of 10 as you get stronger.