Pelvic Health & Parenting: How One Impacts the Other
When patients fill out paperwork before they come in to see us at Lady Bird PT, we ask them to answer a number of questions about their medical history, their symptoms, their lifestyle, etc. One of those questions asks about their goals and what they hope to get out of coming to PT.
A few years ago, I was reading through the paperwork for one of my new patients. She talked about all of the symptoms she’d been having since the birth of her second child who was now 3 years old. She had urinary leakage when exercising and playing with her kids, back pain when she walked more than a mile or so and sex wasn’t painful, but it didn’t feel all that good either.
When I got to the goal section of her paperwork, she only wrote down one. Her goals weren’t about getting her leakage or pain under control, her only goal was to be able to keep up with her kids as they got older. She wrote that she wanted to be able to go on hiking vacations with them and coach their sports teams and she was worried that her symptoms would only get worse and would prevent her from being there for them the way she wanted to be.
In this blog post, we’re going to briefly review common pelvic floor symptoms, how these symptoms impact our overall health and ability to stay active, how taking care of your pelvic health actually serves your kids directly, and steps you can take to have better pelvic health.
Common pelvic floor symptoms
While your pelvic floor contributes to all the symptoms listed below, it’s important to acknowledge that these muscles work alongside your abdominals, hip musculature, diaphragm, postural muscles and more in order to function as they should. Pelvic floor symptoms are often about much more than just the pelvic floor. That’s why a full-body approach is a must to address the root cause of symptoms.
Let’s start with a brief breakdown of some of the most common pelvic floor symptoms:
Urinary incontinence: Urinary incontinence, also known as urinary leakage, is amongst the most common pelvic floor symptoms. Up to 60% of women in the United States may experience urinary incontinence throughout their lifetime, with the prevalence increasing with age. This often occurs as a result of pelvic floor muscle tension or weakness, difficulty with abdominal pressure management, and can be influenced by environmental and dietary triggers.
Dyspareunia: Dyspareunia, or pain with sex, impacts 10-20% of women in the United States. This bucket term dyspareunia includes conditions like vulvodynia and vaginismus, as well as pain stemming from endometriosis and other medical causes. Pelvic floor, abdominal and surrounding muscle hypersensitivity and overactivity can contribute to pain during sex, as can dermatologic conditions, stress levels and a number of other factors.
Other common pelvic health symptoms include:
Urinary urgency and frequency
Reduced vaginal sensation
Inability to control gas
Tailbone pain
Back and hip pain
Heaviness sensations in the vagina
How pelvic floor symptoms impact overall health
It’s not easy to take care of your pelvic health, particularly when you have young children, a demanding career and daily life to navigate. But it’s important to understand how pelvic floor symptoms can impact your physical and mental health over time.
Let’s take urinary incontinence for example. Folks experiencing urinary incontinence have been shown to reduce physical activity dramatically or even entirely. We have patients in the clinic that no longer attempt workout classes or move their bodies outside the home because of embarrassment associated with leakage. And while this is understandable, particularly in a society that continues to suggest that leakage should just be accepted as your new normal, this reduction in physical activity can contribute to a more sedentary lifestyle and thus a host of medical issues down the line. Sedentary lifestyles can contribute to the development of conditions like hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and more. In older adults, urinary incontinence is a major risk factor for falling, which itself is an indicator for morbidity and mortality.
Pelvic floor symptoms like pelvic pain, back pain, inability to control gas, tend to have similar impact on the lifestyle of the person experiencing the symptom. Additionally, these common pelvic floor conditions have a major impact on an individual's mental health.
Folks experiencing pelvic floor symptoms have been shown to have lower moods, self-esteem and confidence. One study looked at the prevalence of depression amongst those with and without pelvic floor symptoms including urinary incontinence, prolapse and fecal incontinence. They found that those with pelvic floor symptoms had significantly higher prevalence of depression than their controls. Folks experiencing pelvic and sexual pain are also more likely to experience anxiety and depression.
We need to stop telling people that these common symptoms should just be accepted as a new normal. Yes, these symptoms are common, but in most cases, they’re also extremely treatable.
Pelvic floor physical therapy can successfully treat all of the conditions listed above, and it does it without medication or medical procedures. This conservative treatment approach is available in every major city in the United States. We should be leaning more heavily on pelvic floor PT as a standard level of care to improve short and long term health outcomes.
How taking care of your pelvic health serves your kids directly
So often, folks cite prioritizing their children over themselves as the reason they don’t have time for self care or physical activity. But did you know feeling good enough to be active for yourself actually serves your children, directly? Let’s dive into how physical activity both during and following pregnancy may impact your child.
If you’re pregnant or planning to be in the future, physical activity during pregnancy can actually impact your baby once they're born! A study from East Carolina University found that exercise may not just have a positive impact on pregnant folks, but also their babies. This study looked at 712 healthy, pregnant women in their first trimester, carrying a single baby. They were split into two groups, one that would continue their regular routine and one that would begin 50 minutes of monitored, moderate intensity cardio exercise, 3 times per week.
A month following birth, the babies were brought back in to have their motor skills and reflexes tested by a pediatric physical therapist. Interestingly, results consistently found that babies whose parent exercised during pregnancy tended to perform better on tests, indicating their motor skills were more advanced.
Now it’s of course difficult to account for all factors. Maybe the more active people continued to have more active play with their babies after birth and that contributed to these disparities in motor skills. This study isn’t proof as much as it is food for thought.
If you’re done having kids and you weren’t active through pregnancy - don’t fret! You feeling strong and healthy enough to be active yourself while parenting your children has also been shown to positively impact your children’s relationship with physical activity.
Data shows that more active parents tend to have more active children. This influence only increases when both parents are active! Physical activity in children reduces the risk for conditions like heart disease, diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome. It also improves social behaviors, goal orientation and decreases anxiety and depression. Giving your children the gift of witnessing you being active can set them up for success later in life.
Wondering where you can start to set yourself up for better pelvic health?
First of all, don’t panic. Little changes can make all the difference and drastic lifestyle changes never work. If you’re starting to think about how to take better care of yourself, check out these 7 steps you can take to have better pelvic health, no matter how much time you do or don’t have.
And then remember, do what you can because something is always better than nothing. If you have time for a 5 minute walk today, do it. If you have energy to stretch on the floor while you watch TV at night, do that. It may be cliché but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true - little changes today lead to big changes in the future.
Ready to start taking care of your pelvic health today? Contact us here to get started working with out expert team!
This post was written by Dr. Rebecca Maidansky, PT, DPT, owner and founder of Lady Bird Physical Therapy. Rebecca is a pelvic floor physical therapist in Austin, TX and founded Lady Bird Physical Therapy in 2019. She is the creator of Birth Preparation and Postpartum Planning, Baby Steps Fitness and the head writer and editor of The Pelvic Press.
Rebecca is a passionate writer and vocal advocate for pelvic health and the importance of improving access to perinatal care. She believes strongly that many common pregnancy pains and postpartum symptoms can be eased or even prevented with basic education and care.
She created this blog to help all birthing people manage common pregnancy pains, prepare for birth and recover postpartum.