Recently I had an awesome chat with my friend Jessie Mundell from Calgary, Canada. She is a fantastic perinatal fitness and lifestyle coach, is a new mum herself and an all round great person.
Jessie had some really good (and challenging) questions for me from the women that she works with, and we ended up talking for 50 minutes (!) covering a ton of pregnancy and pelvic floor related information including:
My thoughts on kegels and daily pelvic floor exercises
Diastasis Recti and abdominal binding
Running during pregnancy (I get asked this a lot)
How to recognise and recover from pelvic organ prolapse
The importance of alignment and movement throughout the day, NOT just exercise
Decreasing your risk of trauma to the pelvic floor during birth
Why you can't just focus on the pelvic floor muscles and how they function in isolation.
* Accent Disclaimer: I AM actually born and raised in Australia but my accent is all over the shop these days thanks to living in Canada for four years and marrying a Canuck. Once I got chatting with Jessie, her very distinct and lovely accent brought it all back! ;D *
From my perspective, a functional pelvic floor or core is one that can support the weight of your internal organs, a growing foetus and your torso, and can respond quickly and effectively to loads subjected upon it. This doesn't just mean exercising or lifting weights, but even simply when you are standing, sneezing, moving, or carrying things (like babies) in your arms.
My goal for any of my pregnant patients is to help them:
Stay mobile, strong and painfree throughout their pregnancy
Optimise pelvic floor and core function during pregnancy and beyond.
To do this, you do need a certain amount of strength for your body to be able to cope with the increasing loads and physical changes in your body during pregnancy. However our modern sedentary lifestyles have led us to be less prepared for this very natural but physically challenging event. That is why I really love Jessie's "Core and Floor Restore" program which focuses on safe whole-body strength training and education during pregnancy and beyond.
Feel free to check out our interview on YouTube and Contact me with any questions that you have about exercise, pelvic floors, abdominal muscles, and pregnancy! You can also connect with me on social media for more info and updates.
