Pregnancy is wild. Someone is walking around growing a human being. It blows my mind every time I see a pregnant person and here at The Pelvic Health & Rehabilitation Center, we get to see a lot of pregnant people! Now a lot of things happen during pregnancy, and hormones are a big key player in the process. You may …
Pain Free After Thirty-Five Years: Christina’s Success Story
By: Kimberly Buonomo, PT, DPT, PHRC Lexington Christina is a 75 year old patient I had the pleasure of seeing last summer. She came to me with a 30+ year history of pain which started as back pain during pregnancy. By the time she got to PHRC, her pain had spread to her pelvic floor, groin, adductors, low back, piriformis …
Michelle’s Postpartum Pelvic Health Struggles…and Success!
By: Rachel Gelman, DPT Michelle is a 30 year old female referred by her gynecologist to us for pelvic floor physical therapy following the birth of her first child. Michelle had her son via vaginal delivery and she was roughly five months postpartum at the time of her evaluation with me. She reports she had a second degree tear with …
The 4th Trimester: Postpartum Pain is Common but not Normal, Part 2
By: Courtney Edgecomb, DPT, PHRC Los Angeles In Part 2 of my 2-part post I will cover different therapeutic strategies for postpartum pain. As a new mom, self-care and appropriate medical attention is critical to ensure you stay as healthy as possible for your little one. I am sure it is daunting to find time for yourself at the moment, …
The 4th Trimester: Postpartum Pelvic Pain is Common but Not Normal
By: Courtney Edgecomb, DPT, PHRC Los Angeles Postpartum Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy is increasingly utilized to help new moms recover from pregnancy and delivery. Is pain normal after giving birth? Of course that is an extremely open-ended question and I would get different answers from almost every single mom (and from each of her pregnancies). But it is hard …
Can Chiropractic Care Help Pregnancy and Labor?
By: Dr. Kandyce Mutter, BScKin, DC ICPA Webster Certified There’s no question that a woman goes through tremendous changes during the nine months of pregnancy. The most obvious physical changes that are likely to affect the spine will begin to occur during the second trimester. As the uterus grows to accommodate the fetus, the lumbar curve of the spine will …
5 Easy Exercises to Help Ease Pregnancy Aches and Pains
By Sigourney Cross, DPT, PHRC Walnut Creek Pelvic and low back pain during pregnancy affects up to two-thirds of women and can start anytime from the first trimester to months after giving birth.1 This is due to a couple of reasons. First, there is a change in your hormone levels. Increased levels of the hormones relaxin, estrogen and progesterone begin …
Your Body After Baby: 5 methods to safely return to fitness following pregnancy
By: Guest Blogger – Kristen Herlihy On January 16, 2019 at 1:30pm EST PHRC Cofounder Elizabeth Akincilar and Baby Boot Camp instructor Kristen Herlihy will be discussing postpartum fitness! For information on how to tune in and listen, please visit their Facebook page. In the spirit of this talk, Kristen wanted to share her thoughts on our blog. As …
Antenatal and Postpartum Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy as Standard of Care
By Dr. Ann Croghan, PT, DPT, CLC, and CAPP-OB trained with introduction by Stephanie Prendergast, MPT A few months ago I shared a link to an article I was interviewed for in Men’s Health Magazine about postpartum sex on our PHRC Facebook Page. I was disappointed there was not better coverage about postpartum pelvic floor physical therapy in …
Childbirth Medical Interventions and Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
By: Admin As a pregnant woman and pelvic floor physical therapist, I am surrounded by stories, advice, and opinions about the right way to give birth. Most of us know that pregnancy and childbirth often result in trauma to the pelvic floor and perineum, which can lead to incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and painful sex, among other things. …
This is Us: a look inside PHRC
By Stephanie Prendergast, Cofounder, PHRC Los Angeles January is often the time to reflect on the past year and set goals for the future. So, in that spirit, we thought it would be fun to dedicate this post to a few top Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center events of 2017….and a peak forward to 2018. In no particular …
C-section Scar Problems and Solutions from a Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist
By Shannon Pacella, DPT, PHRC Lexington If you’re reading this, you probably know what a Cesarean birth (C-section) is,* but what you may not know is what to do once you have had one. Most women post C-section are not given much information regarding their healing incision, except to “keep it clean in order to prevent infection.” …
Pelvic Pain and Childbirth. Dr. Mark Conway tells us what we need to know.
By Elizabeth Akincilar-Rummer As we learned in a recent previous post by Stephanie Prendergast, the vast majority of women are not well informed when it comes to their pelvic floor, pregnancy and childbirth. In fact, 93% of women felt like they were insufficiently informed about their pelvic health! Unlike the rest of the population, many of our patients …
More Than The Baby Blues?
By Melinda Fontaine The majority of women experience some emotional fluctuations known as the Baby Blues in the first three weeks after they give birth, and it is natural. A smaller, but still significant percentage of women will experience Perinatal Mood and/or Anxiety Disorders (PMADs) before or after giving birth. There is a pressure for moms to feel a …
Postpartum sex, your pelvic floor and your body
It is now the six week mark and you are at your postpartum check up and are told by your doctor, everything looks great, you can resume having sex. You’ve finally hit this goal that everyone talks about- “six weeks.” But what does that really mean? Does it mean that everything ‘down there’ is back to normal? Sex will now …
Reducing perineal trauma during labor and delivery
By Stephanie Prendergast, Cofounder, PHRC Los Angeles Who doesn’t love a crowning baby cake? If our image didn’t catch your eye the title of this post probably did if you are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant. Last week we presented a pelvic health quiz about the role of the pelvic floor muscles play in childbirth. This week we …
What women do and don’t know about childbirth and their pelvic floor muscles
By Stephanie Prendergast Recently, a number of studies were published on what women do and don’t know about their pelvic floor muscles, childbirth, and longer-term pelvic health. How much do you actually know? Take our quiz and find out! If you do not know the answers, don’t fret. You are amongst 93% of women who felt like …
Beating the Odds: How one woman overcame a traumatic birth and had a successful second birth
Childbirth is no picnic: 85% of women who deliver vaginally experience perineal trauma and a third of those women in the USA and UK require stitches.2 The thought of having another baby after having gone through a traumatic birth can be daunting, to say the least. Returning to sex can also seem like a feat, especially when pain is involved. …
Yoga throughout Pregnancy and Beyond
By Shannon Pacella This week Shannon Pacella of the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center interviews a yoga instructor about the benefits of yoga before and delivery. What is a typical Prenatal Yoga class like (length of the class, any specific areas of focus)? Each prenatal yoga class can vary widely, depending on the teacher’s style, the …
Fertility: The Other F Word
The older I get, the more I realize that there is another ‘F-word.’ For many people it is a harmless word, but for others it carries the same weight as any other profanity. I am talking about fertility. For a portion of people who are sexually active, fertility is a scary word. For some, fertility can mean a pregnancy that …