Empowering Postpartum Wellness
with Dr. Katelyn Renard, PT, DPT, OCS
While having a child is such a joyous occasion and a blessing, I know first hand the adverse effects it can have on the human body. After giving birth to a child, whether vaginally or via C-section, the core and pelvic floor muscles are usually very inflamed and weak. Many women experience a pulling apart of the abdominal muscles called diastasis recti. Some women have scar tissue from C-section, episiotomy, tears, or other trauma sustained during childbirth. A large majority of postpartum women experience dysfunction of the pelvic floor muscles.
The good news: physical therapy can help with all of this! All postpartum moms should be assessed by a skilled pelvic floor physical therapist to help make a customized treatment plan to help with the road to recovery after child birth. Core and pelvic floor strengthening can be integrated into the activities you love and want to get back to, such as running, exercising at the gym, dancing, or whatever it is you love to do!
While I think core and pelvic floor therapy is a vitally important next step for new moms, there are also other ways that physical therapy can be very beneficial for postpartum women. Physical therapy can provide education and postural exercises to address neck and upper back pain that may occur with carrying/holding the baby, carrying a car seat, pushing a stroller, nursing, falling asleep in random places with the neck in awkward positions (hello, sleep depravity!), etc. Your PT can assess your movement patterns, posture, flexibility, and strength and help get to the root cause of your pain. From there, your PT can make an individualized treatment plan to help get rid of your pain and give you tools to manage symptoms, in order to prevent recurrence of issues down the road.
Mamas- you don’t need to hurt while also caring for a new human life. Come see us!
P.S. If you are a mom but not recently postpartum, you still may benefit from the above-mentioned PT interventions, especially if you never had PT after having your kids. We’d love to work with you as well!
If you or someone you know is struggling with any of the conditions mentioned above, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love the opportunity to see if we can help!
Talk soon!
Kind regards,
Dr. Katelyn Renard PT, DPT, OCS