Episode #25: Tips to have great poops with Aliya Dhalla
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In this episode, we chat with one of our colleagues and fellow Canadian physiotherapists, Aliya Dhalla.
Aliya Dhalla is a pelvic health physiotherapist and owner of Box Wellness Co. with over 12 years of experience. She focuses on women's health, including prenatal and postpartum pelvic health, preparing people for labour and delivery, and addressing common issues such as leaks, pelvic pain, painful sex, and diastasis recti.
She has extensive training in pelvic floor dysfunction, the treatment and management of incontinence, prenatal and postnatal pelvic health considerations, cesarean section recovery, and diastasis recti rehab.
Aliya's mission is to educate and empower women about the changes that occur in their bodies throughout their lifetimes.
We’re so thankful for Aliya for sharing her passion and wisdom with us. We touch on a lot of topics in this episode including:
🔹What initially got Aliya into physiotherapy and pelvic health
🔹What surprised Aliya about her pregnancy and postpartum experience
🔹Advice she gives to early postpartum people
🔹How her views on walking have changed over time
🔹Why is it important to have great poops?
🔹Aliya’s top tips to have great poops!
🔹How constipation might lead to incontinence symptoms
🔹Where her IG handle @boxwellnessco came from
We’re excited for you to listen to this episode and hope you get as much out of this conversation as we did.
Reach out to Aliya:
Instagram
Website
Book with Aliya
A Village in a Box
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Episode #25: Tips to have great poops with Aliya Dhalla
We're excited to have you join us for this episode of Pelvic Health and Fitness. I'm Dayna Morellato, Mom, Orthopedic and Pelvic Health Physiotherapist. And I'm Rhonda Chamberlain, Mom, Orthopedic Physiotherapist and Pre Postnatal Fitness Coach. On this show, we have open and honest conversations about all phases of motherhood, including fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, menopause, and everything in between.
We also provide helpful education and information on fitness, the pelvic floor, and many aspects of women's health, including physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Please remember as you listen to this podcast that this is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical conditions. Please contact your medical provider if you have specific questions or concerns.
Thanks so much for joining us. Grab a cup of coffee. Or wine. And enjoy!
Welcome to the Pelvic Health and Fitness Podcast, where today we are talking to Aliya Dhalla. Aliya is a pelvic health physiotherapist with over 12 years of experience. She focuses on women's health, including prenatal and postpartum pelvic health, preparing people for labor and delivery and addressing common issues such as leaks, pelvic pain, painful sex, and diastasis recti.
She has extensive training in pelvic floor dysfunction, the treatment and management of incontinence. Prenatal and postnatal pelvic health consideration, cesarean section recovery, and diastasis recti rehab. Aliya's mission is to educate and empower women about the changes that occur in their bodies throughout their lifetimes.
So welcome. Thank you. We're so excited to have you. I'm really excited to be here too. So before we get into some questions for you, Aliyah, we'd love to just hear a little bit more about your story. What got you into physiotherapy and then that focus on pelvic health? Sure. Um, so when I, became a physio. Um, this is like many years ago now, like 12 years ago, I had no, I had no idea that there even was a thing as pelvic health.
I don't think anyone did. I don't think it necessarily existed as a sort of specialty or discipline. Um, so I kind of dabbled in orthopedics, working in, you know, private practice clinics. Um, I worked at a hospital. I did, um, um, acute care, like following hip and knee surgeries at a major hospital here in Toronto.
Um, I worked with injured workers. I did amputee rehabilitation. So I did like a whole bunch of things. And I really only got into the field of pelvic health physio when I really needed that for myself after the birth of my son. And he's almost seven now. Um, and so sometimes I like joke around and say that he's, you know, He's my mama maker badge breaker because he like shot right out.
Well, he took, he did not shoot out. He took his sweet time and you know, I was left with a few issues down the road. Um, but that's really what made me super interested in the field of pelvic health physio, which still at that time wasn't as like mainstream as it is right now. Um, Or, you know, I feel like it's becoming more talked about now.
It wasn't really like that six or seven years ago either. But, um, I needed to learn and I, you know, sought out help to kind of help me. And that's when I was like, wow, if I'm a physio with so many years of experience across so many different disciplines, um, and This type of experience blindsided me and really, you know, took me by surprise.
And like, I understand the body and like, you know, I get it. Imagine someone who doesn't have that kind of like profession or education. So that's when it kind of really became like my mission to learn as much as I can, help as many people like me and other people, um, who really, you know, we, as you know, women, we go through a lot of things in life.
Right. And a lot of these things are sort of just like, It's just like the, the weight, the burden you have to hold as a mother, as a woman today. We don't talk about it. We just deal with it. And I kind of, I, this is my way of kind of calling BS on that whole thing. So yeah. So now I just focus exclusively on pelvic health.
Um, I do work with a lot of, um, mothers, but I work with a lot of people who have pelvic floor dysfunction, like leaks and painful sex and similar things. I mean, they've never had children and you know, they may never want to. So it's really. Yeah. It's really fun. I feel like super passionate. I feel like this is This is the right thing for me when I didn't really feel this at any other time in my career, like working in all these different disciplines, I never really felt that I'm in the right place.
So yeah, that's my journey. So I should say thank you to my son, I guess, for breaking my body and leading me to this. Um, yeah, so much of that resonates with Rhonda and I, I think our journey to this was beautiful. Very, very similar. Um, yeah, just call a good calling for sure. Um, so you've touched on sort of your postpartum experience or alluded to it.
Um, what, what were your biggest surprises postpartum from, from a pelvic health perspective? And what do you now know about pregnancy that you wish you knew then? Yeah, those are great questions. Um, so my postpartum experience, I think for me always having been like a pretty active person. Um, you know, I had a pregnancy that was Um, I didn't really have to modify much of my activity.
I could like, I worked out up until, you know, 38 or even 39 weeks pregnant. Maybe like I felt I had one of those good pregnancies. Um, but my labor experience was like super long, super drawn out. Not what I expected. Um, maybe I didn't even know what to expect. So that's something that, you know, I wish I knew, I wish I knew what to expect about labor, um, and how long it could be and like what things we could actually do to maybe help baby.
Moved down like this guy took like 47 hours to get here. It wasn't really it was really challenging So, you know, that's something I certainly wish I knew before And with respect to postpartum even you know, like as a physio I didn't know what to expect in terms of like what's a reasonable amount of activity to do in those first few weeks postpartum Like I really didn't know the day after I came home from the hospital.
I remember You know, we had friends that lived like 15 minutes away, like a 15 minute walk away in the city, um, at a normal speed. And we would often walk to meet them or they would walk to our house. And we said, Oh, we'll just meet you. We'll take the baby for a walk in the stroller and we'll just meet you.
And then you can meet the baby outside. Um, it was, it was in the summer. And so we walked and it took probably about like, a little bit longer than 15 minutes to walk there, but we walked there, we strolled a little bit with them and walked back home. And this was like maybe day three postpartum. And like, this is not appropriate.
I know this now, but in the moment I was like, why not? I did this the day before he was born. Um, so, you know, those are things that I wish I knew, like how normal activity, um, you know, we should probably just scale it back a little bit and spend, you know, some time closer to the bed or maybe even in the bed, like right now.
The kind of guidance that I give to people that I work with is like five days in the bed, five days around the bed, five days around the house. Like, so that you get those first couple of weeks where you're really not doing a lot. You're allowing your body and your tissues to heal. Like, I wish I knew that.
Um, you know, like these types of things that maybe felt obvious to me in the moment or I didn't think about it. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's just not talked about. I think like you said earlier that I think just in society, women are sort of expected to suck it up and just forge on. And, you know, I think we internalize that like I know I had that feeling.
And, you know, if you're athletic, you have that background as well. You just have this feeling of, you know, I'm a badass. I'm going to get right back out there. And I think too, there's confusion. For me, there was confusion with walking because I think I had heard, you know, walking is a safe activity. So, but again, if you have sort of that athletic brain mind, I took that as, okay, sweet.
I'm going to go do, you know, walk around the block, which is like a 20 minute walk. And same as you, I'm like, that's fine. And it's totally, why wouldn't it be fine? And like my experience, my bleeding got worse. And again, no one really explained to me, cause I just. You know, I knew I'd continued bleeding, so I just thought that was also normal.
But now I know that was a sign my body was telling me that, okay, that was probably a bit too much activity too soon. Right. But we, if we're not taught this stuff, how are we supposed to know? Right. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you're like, you know, maybe one of the first in your friend group that had a baby or, you know, like that kind of stuff.
And I wasn't the first to have a baby in my. In some groups of friends, but with other groups, I was the first and like my sister in law had had two babies, but they were both by C section, so her recovery was much different than, than my recovery. Um, so it's just so interesting, right? Like how we don't even think to maybe ask these types of questions because they seem so almost like basic, but this is important stuff.
I feel like we should at least know. Um, so yeah, I wish I knew some of those things. Absolutely. And I, I mean, how often do we hear with our clients? I hear it all the time. I'm sure you do too. Like, Oh, I'm only just walking. Like in the later stages of pregnancy, everybody almost has this like guilt that they're only walking.
And then I have to explain to them, no, it's actually probably great that you've listened to your body and scaled that back. And you know what, in those first several days, a few weeks afterwards. We're going to limit even the walking. That's how much work it can be on your body. That's such a good point.
And so true. And I have to admit that like, you know, you know, we all have viewpoints or perspectives earlier on in our lives and our careers that we look back on and we're like. Uh, I can't believe I thought that or said that, but like, I had really strong views about walking, um, and how it wasn't an exercise unless you were very pregnant or geriatric.
And I used to say this to people, um, because I am like more of an athletic mind and like, I'm a busy, I'm more of a busy body mind. And like, if you're going to work, if I'm going to work out, I'm going to like leave my body on the floor. Um, you know, I was that annoying person that would, Go to yoga class and, like, get up before the Savasana, because, like, this is a waste of my time, um, and I didn't have anywhere to go or anything to do, but that's just, like, my mentality, so, uh, I, I really do regret saying that to all the people I said that to, because now, as, like, I love walking, I love walking for, sure, the health and the wellness benefits, but, like, the mental clarity it gives me, and, like, it absolutely is an exercise, and now there's all these studies that are linking it to, like, longevity and overall wellness, and, um, Blah, blah, blah.
So I, you know, I shouldn't have said that. I don't believe it anymore, but I really believed it then so and when I had my son, I think I probably still believe that at that time. And so for me, like, so what? I just went for a walk. It's not even exercise. I'm not pregnant anymore. So, um, yeah, those were some.
Potentially harmful thoughts I had. Uh, but yeah. Yeah. I, I relate to that too. And I, I'm similar to you. I've come around with walking and I actually really love it now, but same as you, I just thought it wasn't hardcore enough. If I wasn't sweating, dripping buckets, it wasn't breathing hard. What's the point.
Right. And so, I love that with your Instagram stories, Ali is always doing walks and, you know, tracking, I think you were trying to do 10 K steps a day there for a while. And yeah, I think that's just so great. Cause it's again, just a reminder for those of us that have that athlete brain mind that walking counts, walking really does count.
Yeah, it really does. It really does, you know, and for those of us who like. Um, I don't really like want to classify it as like some type of an activity like it is a steady state cardio. It's like low intensity, right? It's, it's easy. So yeah, back in September when my son went back to like after the summer when schools went back in person, I was like, well, I'm pretty sedentary for my job.
Um, I, I like challenges. Like I like to make a goal and then to achieve it. Um, so I'm just going to do this. And I never used to walk. Like I used to, I live downtown, so I would certainly walk in my neighborhood, but I never walked without purpose. Um, and I'm just gonna walk without purpose for 10, 000 steps just because it seemed easy and like you hear people say that sounds like that seems easy.
I can track that on my phone. And then it really became like quite a wonderful habit. And to this day, I still I don't do it every day anymore. Um, because I realized I have like a, like a nagging low back hip injury that it's just muscular and it comes and it goes, but it was kind of flared up last week.
And, um, I didn't do any, I didn't go to the car. I didn't go CrossFit. I didn't do anything. I just like did rehab exercises at home and I walked for like my hour, hour and 20 minutes every day. But why was my stupid hip still hurting me? And I realized that I was actually aggravating a lot um, by walking.
So I, so that was a very like aha moment for me that, oh my gosh, you're walking is so strenuous for you with this particular like injury that you have. Um, so anyways, I do it most days of the week. Um, and I really do, I can't, I would not have believed. That I would intentionally walk with no purpose, like nowhere to go, like even five years ago, even three years ago, you know, anyway.
Oh, so good. So speaking of Instagram, um, we love following you on there and your handle on there is at box wellness co, which I'll put that in the show notes for people to follow you. So yeah, you provide a ton of. Super valuable information on there and people seem to really resonate with your messaging about how to have great poops And that is going to be our topic today, which I think is so important And you know if you're listening to this and you're wondering why are we talking about great poops?
What does that have to do with the pelvic floor? Um, do you want to share with us a little bit about why that's important to you for sure? well, I mean, I love talking about great poops because I feel like Pooping is one of those things, right? Like, we do it every day, like, you know, more or less every day, but like, we don't talk about it.
And when you don't have a good poop, um, it does make your day bad. And when you have a great poop, it's like such a good feeling, right? So I think it's one of those topics that like, Nobody really talks about too much, especially on social media. Um, but it's often something that like, if you're constipated, you are searching for remedies to how to have a better poop, or if, you know, you miss your poop window, like these are things that you're, you're guys are all nodding, like we all resonate with this.
Um, and so with respect to like, why should we care about it? Well, like, honestly, it is. In my opinion, I'm like one of the pillars to having good public health, right? Like a rectum, right? Like the organ that holds our poops sits in our pelvis, right? Beside like our bladder, literally neighbors and, you know, beside our uterus and vaginal canal, if we have that.
Um, and so what's going on there and how we actually like. Poo and the quality of the stool. That's like in our rectum. It really does affect our overall pelvic health, right? It affects our bladder health and our habits, um, and it can contribute to pain and so on and so forth. So, it is an important topic.
If we talk about pelvic pain or pelvic health, rather, it's not all just about, you know, leaks and stuff like that. That is more common to see on social media people talking about, which is also super great, right? It's also a topic that. Has a lot of shame, um, and secrecy behind it too. But yeah, we can't address leaks without addressing poops anyways.
Yes. No, for sure. I have to say when I decided to go into the pelvic stream and I took my level one and I, one of the things when I left there, I said to my husband, I said, I can't talk to people about poop all day. Like I, this is so far beyond what I thought. I thought we were going to learn I thought we're going to learn about leaks and my mind again as a physio wanting to get into pelvic health at this time thinking.
It's just about weakness and retraining leaks. And then so much of my discussions with people and my clients come to the effects that constipation or poor gut health is having on their leaks and their pain. It's so interesting. It's so related, but it's really. Like that's so interesting that you were like surprised by it and it goes to show like how surprised like our clients and patients are when we start asking those questions, you're like, no, I want to talk about why I'm like peeing in my pants.
That's nothing to do with my poop. I can, I can hold my poop just fine. And it's, it's really interesting that, you know, I find that when I work with people one on one and I encourage them to track what their, like their bladder habits and like their bowel routine and stuff like this, like they're able to pick out, um, that correlation for themselves too.
So that's kind of nice. Yeah, absolutely. So what are your top tips to help people have great poops? Well, definitely, you know, like the universal problem solver, drink more water. Um, so that's like a given because that can affect obviously like our bladder health and our bladder reactivity and You know, our skin and our energy levels and all that stuff.
But obviously also our poop. So that is number one up there. Um, getting adequate fiber, right. And that's different for all of us in terms of like maybe the mix of soluble and insoluble fiber that works for our bodies. And, you know, if we have certain food intolerances or whatnot, like figure all that stuff out and make sure that you're drinking or you're eating, you know, more whole foods and some like vegetables and get some.
Oats in your diet or stuff that, you know, legumes and beans and whatnot, get your fiber and try to eat vegetables with every meal is a good place to start. So I encourage that. And I also find that people think they're eating a lot of like fibrous sources, but when you ask them to like, write stuff down just for a day or two, they're like, that's funny.
I am not eating so many fiber sources as I thought. So that's a good one. Um, and then definitely to just make sure that. You know, the, the poop technique, like making sure that we're not straining to, to get the, the poop out. Um, and I feel like a lot of the times people, even if they're, you know, their poops are like the, the perfect poop, right?
Soft and smooth and easy to pass. They're still straining to get it out because that's just a habit that a lot of us have developed. We don't pay attention to like what we're doing when we're pooping, we just poop. Um, and for some of us that is training. So taking a look at how we're pooping. And instead of like holding our breath and pushing really hard, um, instead of like using an inhale or an exhale breath to like encourage that change in intra abdominal pressure to help the poop come out.
So that's one of my great tips as well. And then another tip is a very common tip that, you know, a lot of. public health physios and educators out there will say, like, get your knees up, right? Get your feet up on a stool so that your knees are higher than your hips. Um, and that helps to really, um, kind of like unkink that muscle, the pubertalis, right?
The one that loops around the rectum and can just literally create a little bit more space and change the angle of the rectum. So whatever type of poop you have in there, if it's hard or soft, it can come out. a little bit easier. So those are really like my top tips. Um, along with getting movement every day, because the more sedentary we are, the less that we move, um, you know, our, we're not having good gut motility either.
So even just like this, this walk, this walk that we've been talking about a lot back, that's, you know, that's good for some people if we're sitting all day. Yes. Squatty potty. Like, I will, I'm so curious, the Canadian Tire across from our clinic, how many sales of squatty potties do you, do you refer, like, do you recommend that to your patients?
I don't have a stool. Canadian Tire has the squatty potties, like they're just right there. All of the time they come back and they're like, I went right over and got one. Oh, that's perfect. I usually tell people like, I don't even have a squatty potty. I just have like my son's step stool and I'm like, just go to the dollar store.
If you want to spend 20 on a special stool, please do. But if you don't go to the dollar store and just get something right. You know, I feel like it doesn't matter what it is, right? Just get something to get your feet up. Um, and your knees higher and supported. I feel like it's a good distinction. I did have someone come in not too long ago that was like, well, I just like hold my knees up and I was like, okay, we would just want to support you there.
That's such a good point. Or even like, yeah, some people, depending on like their, their height and their body proportions and also like how high or low their toilet is. Some people could just like. put their, um, go up on their toes, like keep their feet on the ground, but go up on their toes. So their knees are technically maybe higher, but you're so right.
We don't, you're not relaxed. We want like your feet relaxed, your knees open, all that stuff. So that's a good distinction to make. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was surprising for me. So I, my story is interesting that I didn't really learn about pelvic health until after I was done having children. So thinking back to my second pregnancy, especially I had horrible constipation.
So whether that was hormonal, I think that is that common, like hormonally in pregnancy. Yeah, it is. So hormonally and also like there's not much space. Your baby is like literally physically squishing your organs, right? Right. So yeah, so I had a horrible constipation in my second pregnancy. And not surprisingly, that is when I first started feeling prolapse symptoms.
And so, you know, that's when I started, you know, again, after the fact, when my prolapse symptoms didn't magically go away postpartum like I thought they would. Yeah. you know, started to then, you know, I went to pelvic health, uh, physio and same thing. She started asking me about my bowel habits and yeah, before I knew I was like, why, why does this matter?
But, you know, as I learned and talked about my constipation issues, Oh, that makes sense. So, you know, I'm straining to go to the bathroom and, you know, that might've been contributing to some of those prolapse symptoms. So for me managing my bowels and getting that kind of under control postpartum was a huge, huge factor.
with minimizing my prolapse symptoms, which is so interesting. Yeah, and that's so common. That is like really one of the greatest tips for, you know, when it comes to prolapse, it, you know, it is like management of your prolapse, right? We're not necessary. We're not fixing it in physiotherapy. We're not, maybe, maybe we're going to reduce it half a grade or something.
We're not, Fixing it. Yeah. Um, you're learning how to manage your symptoms and you know, manage this. So it really is Management. So learning that for you avoiding constipation constipation and straining is key. That's really good That's really it's super common, right? That's one of the top tips for managing prolapse is like don't get constipated Don't strain don't push your pee or your poo out and it's similar for hemorrhoid management too, right?
Because hemorrhoids the same thing we just want to manage them. We want to get them settled down We want to keep them settled down. So, you know, um Straining and, and, and that type of, that type of downwards pressure is something that we want to avoid for hemorrhoids too, yeah. Yep, so interesting. The thing that I often, um, find is a helpful tip too if you're listening, and it's very hard as a mom.
Is don't delay your urge to go poop as much as you can, because that stool will move back up into, uh, further back up into the rectum, the colon, and then more water gets taken out of it. And then we kind of are making the harder stool problem harder. Totally. Yeah, I, I love such a great tip. I love, you know, educating on that kind of stuff too, because sometimes like even just learning that helps people understand like why we should respond to that urge, right?
Because yes, just like you said, like it, it gets scared, it travels up, we ignore it, it goes high, it goes, travels up, it gets, water gets drawn out of it, it becomes harder, it becomes more concentrated with fecal bacteria too, right? So like that's really not we want to be later at some point passing, right?
So, um, That's a, that's a great tip. So yeah, we shouldn't avoid that urge. No, I'd love to ask you. Sorry, go ahead, Dana. I was gonna say that's usually a light bulb for for some people because that's really tricky. You know, you're stuck under a baby feeding or whatever. Um, so as much as you can, it doesn't have to be perfect, but as best you can just go.
Yeah. Um, I didn't have this on the list of questions, Aliya, but it just. So, um, it just made me think of, um, you are really good at sharing on Instagram about some of your great poops bowls. So, I'm curious, too, what, uh, what do you have in those? Is it that, is that your breakfast, typically? Yeah, so, I am a creature of habit.
I really I have no problem eating the same foods over and over again. I usually will get to a point where I'm like, I cannot see this again, but that takes me months to get there. So, um, I eat oatmeal in the morning if I'm hungry or if I've worked out in the morning. Um, I'm not hungry in the morning, but if I, If I have, if I go to CrossFit in the morning and I'm still not hungry, I'll force myself to eat cause then the rest of the day will be very hard from an energy perspective.
But I have, um, like large flake oats that I cook on the stove top and I always top it with fruits. If I berries, it's always fruit. It's always berries if I have them. Um, or it's like a pear that's cut up or whatnot. And then. maple syrup, chia seeds and cinnamon. That's it. That's, that's my, yeah, that's my great poops oatmeal bowl.
Cause it has a really nice mix of soluble and soluble fiber. Chia seeds are like great fiber sources, like lots of bang for your buck there. And you know, it's sort of just genius. I tried a few days ago, I saw this recipe that went viral on Tik TOK and I tried to recreate it and it looked horrible. Um, but it was like a banana, um, Weeda Bix.
Which is like whole grain oats and wheat, I think. I don't, never had it before, but I bought it. So you, you mix, you mush up the banana and the wheat, you crumble the wheat a bit, so you add a little bit of milk on it, and then you take mushed up raspberries, and you make a layer of raspberries, and you put a couple dollops of yogurt, and then you melt chocolate, like dark chocolate, and you put on top, and then you put it in the fridge.
It's like this overnight situation. So I did that. Cause I was like, it looks so lovely on TikTok and then I made it and it looked so bad, but I ate it and it was good, but it wasn't like my oatmeal bowl. Right. So like I made it and I was like, now I have this entire box of Weetabix and I have a freezer full of raspberries, but anyways, I'll make it again one day.
But that was very good. That was very heavy on the fiber. I will say. Yeah. And your, your great poops bowls always look so beautiful too. Yeah. Follow her on Instagram because they look so pretty. They, they are pretty and they taste better when they look better for me. Yeah. What are some surprising side effects of poor gut health that you think might surprise our listeners?
Oh, that's a good question. Um, I don't know that I'm like actually the expert on gut health per se, um, but I think that, you know, when we're not having like, you know, regular bowel movements and when we're not like evacuating our bowels with ease, we can have like a lot of bloating perhaps and like feeling not hungry and we can have like sluggish, you know, energy levels and so on and so forth.
Um, I think that also if we're Yeah. Constipated or were often with, you know, stool in our digestive system, like we might find that our bladder is more reactive than than not right. And I think that's another thing that, um, does surprise people. I think, Dana, you were mentioning it before that, like, you know, people who just.
Want to address leaks don't understand the correlation between like digestive health and like our poops and our leaks So I think that is something that really does surprise people In terms of like managing our our poops and whatnot Yeah, that's what I would say. That's usually surprising to people for sure.
I think Could you maybe walk our listeners through, because I know probably one of the most common things people come to pelvic physio would be leaking. Could you maybe just touch on how constipation could lead to bladder leakage? For sure, for sure. So, um, We have our pelvis and we have like our pelvic organs, right?
So we have our bladder our rectum and then our uterus if we have one and they sit like in fairly tight quarters, right? so if we imagine that our Rectum, which is where the stool or the feces hangs out if that rectum is full of poop You know, especially if it's harder, you know constipated concentrated poop that doesn't move through very frequently So it's always kind of full with some stuff in there we can Visualize or imagine that that's kind of pushing into the bladder, like taking up space or crowding the bladder a little bit.
Now if we have symptoms already of like leaking or frequent urges or really strong urges that we can't quite control, um, or, you know, even leaks when we jump or sneeze or cough or these types of things. Um, we can imagine that if there's like physically something pushing into the wall of the bladder from the outside, this could, Cause that bladder and the bladder lining to be more reactive and so to be more irritated.
So to give us more symptoms of urgency or more frequent urges, strong urges, or even like, um, leaks with these various activities. Um, it just, it's a simply, sometimes I like to simplify it for people and say like, it's literally just crowding you like a nosy neighbor and it's pushing into your space and you're getting like cranky about it.
Like you being the bladder, right? The bladder is getting cranky about that. That. that crowded nosy neighbor. Um, so it really is. It really is that way. And oftentimes when I work with people, um, one on one, I'll have them crack the bladder and bowel habits for a few days so that we can pick out patterns and, um, you know, people can gain insight from their own habits and behaviors.
Um, and it's. it's often like really clear when someone has more leaks on a specific day. It's also a day that they didn't have a poop or they were quite constipated. And it's really, it's really interesting to see that in, in someone's diary as well. So, um, hopefully that explanation can help people who might be wondering how those two things are correlated.
That's perfect. I love the nosy neighbor. Yeah. Makes so much sense. Um. So where does your Instagram handle, boxwellnessco, come from? So I'm kind of like, you know, I mean, I, I think I'm funny, but I'm kind of more like a little bit sarcastic, a little bit snarky, a little bit tongue in cheek sometimes. So boxwellnessco is like me just, you know, sometimes, We have different names for our private parts and for our vagina and whatnot, right?
And the whole thing and some people call it like a box, right? And maybe you guys have heard this. Um, and so I named this whole business thing Box Wellness Co. Because and like the tagline that I don't actually put anywhere, but it's in my head is wellness in and out of your box. I'm really thinking about like our pelvic health and our pelvic wellness, but also like how it's really not just like what's in the box.
All these other things, right? If we talk about, like, the more technical term, like, the biopsychosocial aspect of it, looking at the whole person, like, not just what's happening in their pants, um, so that's kind of, like, where it came from, because I always had this idea This kind of like vision or this plan of creating a space, like a digital virtual space where people could come to for education, information, answers for help, not just with like public health, but like things related to that.
Um, so, uh, so, yeah, that's where I came from. It's funny to me. I love it. I love it too. I didn't know. I, I actually assumed, I'll ask you this next. I, I thought the box wellness co was because you sell these village in a box. I thought that's where it came from. Oh, that's so funny. So there you go. That, that goes well too.
Yeah, that like, yeah. So the village in the box came like way after. After. Yeah, yeah. And then like it was a play on words because. The whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of a village in a box, I actually got one for one of my friends, um, in her early postpartum phase and she loved it. Such a good, um, bridal or sorry, not bridal shower wedding.
No baby shower. I, sorry everyone, I have COVID brain still. Um, such a good baby shower gift. Um, can you tell us a little bit more about your village in a box? Yeah, I'm so glad that your friend liked it. Yeah, so the village in a box is pretty much like all the essentials that you'll need for like that fourth trimester for those, the early days postpartum.
And so I found that I was, you know, constantly recommending certain products to like clients and to people on the internet and to friends. Um, you know, the things that we actually need postpartum to help with our tissue healing and our recovery in those first few weeks. Um, and then I found that like I couldn't really find anything really that like existed that had a bunch of these things together, at least in like, A box that kind of looked nice and that was giftable if that's what you wanted and wasn't really too Granola looking like still look like nice presentable, you know with good branding and stuff So I basically kind of like picked my favorite products.
I kind of created some products that made sense as well um And, um, put them all into this box and I called it a village in a box because, um, maybe, maybe you've heard the term, like, it takes a village, right? Like, having a newborn, like, it takes a village to raise a child, but like, nowadays, we don't really have a village.
So this is like our little village in a box for those early postpartum days. Um, so yeah, so it has some things that, you know, in my opinion, are very important for early recovery. Like, um. Sips, herbs and, um, which hazel alcohol free and the freedom on Perry bottle, which I wish existed when my son was born.
Um, and, um, lubricant for if in wine, you're ready to go back to sex when you're cleared and coconut oil to do perineal massage, to prepare yourself to go back to sex, if that's what you want. Um, like nursing pads, bamboo reusable nursing pads. Um, a really neat thing that I got made, um, was these like reusable or.
Yes. Reusable hot and cold packs. So you can like warm it up in the microwave or you can put it in the freezer. So if you have a sore, you know, pelvic floor or vulva, if you had a perineal tear or some trauma, you can use it cold. Um, or if you had a C section incision, you can use it there for that like symptomatic relief, but then.
Um, if you have cramps and when your period returns, you could like warm it up or, you know, stuff like that. So if you, you know, have a clogged milk duct, you could warm it up and put it on your breast to help the milk flow. So, um, that's a really cool product that's in there. So stuff like that. And then there's like some nice to haves, right?
Like a really great lip balm. That's like all natural and like a dry shampoo and a scrunchie and like all these like nice to have things. Like what new mom, yeah, what new mom is going to wash their, like, I'm not a new mom, but this is my life, right? So, um, living on dry shampoo. Um, yeah. Check out these boxes.
They are amazing. They truly are. You've thought of everything. I love the lip on the scrunchie. Like it's, yeah, it's bang on. It's so great. Yeah, I'll link it in the show notes so people can have a direct link to check them out too. Oh, amazing. Thank you. Yes. So Aliya, where can our listeners find you? How can they work with you?
Um, so the place that I most often hang out is on Instagram at Box Wellness Co. Um, you can also find me on my website @boxwellness.co. Um, and on there you can find out, I, I often have, um, live virtual workshops throughout the year. Um, targeted towards people who are pregnant or postpartum and some just like general pelvic health stuff.
Um, and you can also find a way to book in to see me for a virtual consult as well. Um, so you can find it all there on my website. Amazing. Are you 100 percent virtual right now, Aliyah? I am 100 percent virtual right now, but I don't know what the future will hold. Yeah. Stay tuned. Yeah. Stay tuned. Exactly.
That's like a little teaser in there. Mainly because I haven't finalized anything yet, so I shouldn't say anything. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for chatting with us, Aliya. So much helpful information for our listeners, and I'm excited for everyone to hear this episode. Thank you guys so much for having me.
This was a lot of fun. Thanks for listening to today's podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. If you liked what you heard, we would love if you could share this with a friend, leave us a review, or subscribe to anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. Thanks for being here.
