Episode #50: Tips to prepare your pelvic floor for pregnancy and postpartum with Laura Holland and Nadia Qahwash
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In this episode, Rhonda and Dayna chat with Laura Holland and Nadia Qahwash all about preparing your pelvic floor for pregnancy and postpartum. Laura Holland and Nadia Qahwash are pelvic floor physiotherapists in the K-W region who are big believers in providing women with knowledge, comfort and confidence to birth smarter, not harder. They believe that teaching women the foundations of their pelvic health during pregnancy will set them up for a positive birth and healing experience, postpartum. Together, they make up Birthwell!
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LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN EPISODE
🔹 Listen to Laura’s previous episode on Postpartum Return to Intimacy
🔹 Follow Birthwell on Instagram
PODCAST LINKS & RESOURCES
🔹 Check out Rhonda’s FREE Resource Library
🔹 Pelvic Health and Fitness Podcast
SHOW NOTES:
(0:52) - What we are talking about, today! (and a helpful guide that Rhonda has updated for you!)
(2:25) - Habit #1: Straining to pee
(8:11) - Habit #2: Straining to poop (and constipation management)
(14:45) - Habit #3: Going pee “just in case”
(21:40) - Habit #4: Having urgency with certain environmental cues
(26:00) - Habit #5: Delaying the urge to have a bowel movement
(29:06) - Habit #6: Hovering over the toilet
(31:27) - Wrap up!
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Episode #50: Tips to prepare your pelvic floor for pregnancy and postpartum with Laura Holland and Nadia Qahwash
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!
Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode of the pelvic health and fitness podcast.
Today, we are honored to welcome our friends and colleagues, Laura Holland and Nadia Qahwash. Laura and Nadia are pelvic floor physiotherapists and the KW region. Together, they have 10 years of patient care experience and seven years of pelvic health experience. As they continue to grow in their careers, their passion for women's In particular, pregnancy and postpartum.
Has also flourished. Laura and Nadia are big believers in providing women with knowledge, comfort, and confidence to birth smarter, not harder. They believe that teaching women the foundations of their pelvic health during pregnancy will set them up for a positive birth and healing experience postpartum.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. Welcome. Okay. So we're just going to dive right in. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into the world of women's health physio. We'll start with Nadia and then Laura, you can chime in. Um, okay. So I actually grew up in Kitchener Waterloo area.
Um, I grew up very like in an active household. I have four brothers, so they were like kind of rough housing me around. They kind of showed me the ropes with different sports. Um, but I grew up playing basketball quite a bit, and that kind of was my realm. I got pretty good at it too. Um, and yeah, during that.
Um, playing basketball and everything, I definitely suffered from some injuries and was in and out of physio offices. Um, and I remember kind of like one particular incident where I had hurt myself pretty bad. So I was doing physio for a while and, um, I would ask the physiotherapist like a million and one questions.
I was asking him about anatomy. I was asking him what he was doing, like everything. And I think he just got really annoyed with me by the end of it and was like, here's an anatomy book. Take it and do what you with it. So I definitely had an interest in physio and, um, knew I wanted to kind of take that career path in like grade 11.
I think it was. Um, and then, yeah, I ended up getting a scholarship at York for basketball, um, and was doing, uh, kinesiology and health science there. And eventually, um, when I graduated, I had applied to Queens for physiotherapy school, got in, which was awesome. Um, and then I was kind of naive to the fact that there was different areas of physio, I think, like, I didn't know pelvic health physio really existed.
Um, Like I knew about it, but not not much. Um, so through my clinical placements, I got to kind of get exposed to that. So I did shadow with a lot of pelvic health physios, which was really good. So I did get some exposure that way. But Now, looking back, I feel like there's definitely not enough education and pelvic health, um, in physio school.
Like I think we had maybe a two hour lecture out of the two years that I was there, which is kind of insane to me just a little bit. Um, because it does affect, um, women specifically, it can affect men as well, but, um, it's definitely something that I think should be talked about way more in the physiotherapy education.
And, um, yeah, from there, uh, at Queen's we had to complete a research project at the end of the year. And I worked with a professor that was doing research on prenatal and postpartum exercise, which was really cool. And I got to work closely with her and, um, just learning a little bit more about that and data collection.
And that's where my interest in kind of like prenatal and postpartum, um, rehab really started to kind of soar. Um, and then after that. I landed a job at a clinic that did have a pelvic physio or pelvic health physio there and kind of gained a little bit more interest that way. I just knew I wasn't ready to go into it right away.
Um, as you know, pelvic floor physio is, it can be a very intimate setting. You know, you kind of have to gain the trust of your patient and being a rookie. I don't think I would have been able to do that kind of right off the bat. So I just waited two years. Then I officially did some of like the courses required to, um, do pelvic floor physio.
And once I did that, it was kind of like done. Like I knew that this was my passion and this was just kind of what needed to do in life. So it's been, um, quite the journey. So far, I love it. Yeah, Elvis is definitely. The forgotten land. Oh, not in the T spine. We've talked about it before. Yeah. All right, Laura, I know a little bit about your journey, but why don't you tell us?
Yeah. Um, I've never heard Nadia's journey from start to finish, even though we're business partners. So yeah, kind of, I guess, similar to Nadia, I grew up as an athlete. Um, I knew I wanted to be a physio from the time that I was 16. Um, and so I did an undergrad in kinesiology. And then, um, I sort of had like a little blip in my journey where I thought maybe I wanted to work in public health.
So I applied to a public health master's, but it just didn't feel right. So I ended up taking a year off to work in a clinic, um, as a kin, um, and then decided, yeah, I really want to be a physio and went back to school. Um, and when I went to physio school, um, again, women's health, pelvic health, wasn't really sort of discussed.
And, um, so I ended up taking an elective course at Western and women's health because I thought the course content sounded interesting and I had also sort of dealt with my own pelvic health symptoms from the time that I was 17. It's not uncommon for a lot of, um, athletes to have leaking with exercise and things like that.
And that was something that I had experienced. Um, and I just didn't know that that wasn't. Like that that was fixable. And so when I took the course, I was mind blown that I'd made it through four years of a science undergrad, where we took so much anatomy and, um, a year and a half of physio school, and I'd never even heard about the pelvic floor.
And so it really sort of like sparked this passion to learn more about it. And then after that, we went into clinical placements and I got super fortunate to have a clinical placement with Dayna, um, because she was actually doing pelvic health at the time. And so I will always look back on that experience with so much gratitude for you, Dayna, and also all the patients who let me sit in as a student, um, because now that I work in the field, I understand like how big of a deal that was.
And everyone was really, um, generous to let me have a little bit of experience, even though I couldn't actually. do anything because I hadn't graduated just to be able to sit in this space and hear what people were going through was really special. So I, um, sought out a clinic that had pelvic floor physiotherapy to work out when I graduated.
And same thing as Nadia. I just, I knew I wanted to have some time to just get being a physio under my belt before I moved into something. That was a little more specialized. Um, so I did just regular physio for about two years and, um, I didn't really love it. So, um, I always knew I wanted to be in women's health, but there was just, yeah, so many things about, um, moving that way for, for my health and more time with patients and being one on one and the setting is, is just, um, very special.
So since then I've been doing pelvic physio, um, full time and I just love it. So good. And for those of you that have listened to our podcast for a while, you might recognize Laura's name and voice. She was on our podcast previously. We did an episode on returning to intimate intimacy postpartum, which was a really great episode.
I'll link that in the show notes. If you want to look back at that. So I would love to hear how, first of all, how did you two meet each other and what led you to decide to join forces and create birth? Well, Yeah, so, um, we met because we both worked at the same clinic, um, that specialize in pelvic health.
I remember the first day I met Nadia, actually, I was, we worked at different, there was two locations and we worked at different locations in the beginning. And, um, I had come over to bring something to the other location and she came around the corner and she was like, you're Laura, I heard you're doing pelvic health.
And she just hugged me. And I was like, I don't don't even remember that. Cute. You were like, I'm taking my course this weekend. Um, yeah, it was cute. Anyways, then eventually we landed in the same, um, location when we both started doing pelvic health. Um, and I just feel like we instantly became friends and we shared a lot of similar values about, um, how underrated women's health is and particularly, um, pregnancy and postpartum.
There's just, I mean, Dayna, you've done the levels, but there's just not a lot of emphasis on pregnancy and postpartum. Part of in terms of like preparing or being proactive, like I feel like most of the things that we kind of learned through our courses were like how to deal with pregnancy related conditions, but not like how can we actually set women up for success proactively.
And so I'm Nadia and I spent a lot of time between patients. just sort of talking about that sharing, like we had to find everything that we've done, um, to create birth wells information that we had to find through podcasts and, you know, trying things with clients. And like, we didn't like take a course and learn this information.
So we learned a lot from each other. And I feel like that just sort of created this bond where we got to a point where we were like, we're really seeing people benefit from this. in the one on one space and it would be amazing if we could move towards like teaching groups and teaching classes and being able to, to connect with patients, um, you know, outside of our immediate community, which, yeah, it was really, that's kind of how it started.
And this was like two years ago, like we were in, we would literally be in between patients or like we'd have a break together and we'd be in one of our offices and just like brainstorming things that we didn't, we didn't even know would be coming to fruition, right? Like we didn't, we didn't have birth well at that point.
We were just kind of like talking about like how we would change the education around pregnancy and postpartum and change that culture around it. And that's, like, definitely one of the things that we connected on, um, and why we're doing what we're doing now. I think, yeah, I think I totally agree with you in terms of the focus on pregnancy and postpartum.
Like it's, it's sort of mentioned here and there, but until I moved fully into a space and Laura, you probably, I don't even remember if we had any pregnant people other than me. I was very pregnant when you were with me. Um, I don't, I can't even recall if we had any pregnant patients. So when I, I worked.
primarily with this population now too. I had to, yeah, exactly like you said, you have to figure it out. And I was lucky to be around a team who this is what they had done for many years, but it's interesting. Women's health has come so far, but even, even the clinicians have to go digging for some of the information.
Um, yeah, it's interesting. I think we're fortunate enough that we work one on one with patients right now that we can, you know, try things out and see what works for them and kind of, yeah, discuss it. And I know Laura and I did lean on each other for that, just, you know, getting ideas out there and like, what do you do for this?
Or like, you know, just kind of discussing, um, those types of things, which was really helpful. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, fantastic. So what are some of your top tips that you discuss with your clients about pelvic floor health and pregnancy? We'll throw it to you, Nadia. Um, I would say, so one of the things that I try to preach with my patients is, um, And what's very important is just getting to know your pelvic floor and getting to know your body in general.
Um, during pregnancy, there's so many changes that happen, um, throughout the pregnancy due to hormones, due to posture, like just carrying a tiny little human. So it's important to know how those are going to, like, how that's going to affect you. your own posture, how it's going to affect your pelvic floor.
Um, it's pretty astounding at how many people don't know how to connect to their pelvic floor or how to connect to their core when they come into my office. And I think that's like the number one baseline thing that they should be able to do, because that's where everything stems from. Um, and it's the area that is greatly affected.
Yeah. due to pregnancy and postpartum. So that is kind of, um, one tip. It's just like getting to know your body and getting to know, getting to know your body as it changes through pregnancy. Um, and then the other thing I would say is, uh, you're, you're not as fragile as you think you are when you're pregnant.
I think that's so, so important. Um, I'm a huge proponent of like, Continuing to do exercise. Um, and just continuing to kind of, you know, push yourself in a way that's comfortable for you. But, uh, you know, I have a lot of questions about, Oh, can I do this? Can I do that? I'm worried that I'm going to, you know, split open my abdomen and it's like, No, that's not gonna happen.
Um, so it is really trying to reinforce, like, don't worry, you aren't fragile, you aren't going to break. You have to understand that, like, you are carrying a baby. And so you can still continue to do things and still continue to be active. It's just the way that you're active, how you can modify those things, and just being a little bit smarter about it.
Um, and activating your pelvic floor and your core properly breathing properly, like all those things are so important. Um, but if you don't know how to do them, then obviously getting into exercise or trying things out can be a little bit fearful and just, um, I understand that aspect of it, but yeah, I definitely try to preach continuing to exercise, um, and just tweaking things and modifying things.
If, if it's not working out for your body. I love that Nadia. I feel like I, that's something I talk about all the time with my clients, more so postpartum, but also pregnancy. So I think that's two things you touched on. I think helping our clients kind of find the messy middle, find the middle between the pendulum swing.
I think a lot of times the advice is either. You're fragile, you know, you're broken, you can't do anything. Take it easy, rest, do yoga, which that statement is problematic in and of itself because yoga is not this benign activity either yet, or the opposite end of the spectrum, which I gravitated toward is you're a badass.
Just keep doing what you've always done. Um, you know, just keep pushing all that kind of thing where. I think where a lot of us end up, you know, helping our clients find is, yeah, that messy middle where, yeah, like you said, you're not fragile, but we're also not invincible. And there also is considerations to be made about our pelvic floor during pregnancy that many of us just never were taught, including us all as pelvic, you know, as physiotherapists, we didn't know about this information until we started searching for it.
So I love that, Nadia. Yeah, I think the other thing that's important to you about like preparing for um, or just pelvic health and pregnancy in general is that what you need might be different from what someone else needs. And like, I feel like especially with social media, social media is amazing because it helps create like awareness around a lot of these topics.
But then I think it also, um, there becomes like blanket statements of like, Oh, you shouldn't do X or you shouldn't do Y, or you should do X or you shouldn't do Y. When in reality, everyone's baseline is different. Everyone's pelvic health is a little bit different. Everyone's pregnancy is a little bit different.
And so having someone who can help you like help kind of guide you in terms of like what might work for you and not just like what you should generically do during pregnancy or not do during pregnancy is really important. So important to, I find, and you guys can chime in, obviously, your baseline is different between pregnancies as well.
Yeah. So I have a lot of clients where they'll come back and they'll be like, you know, I was able to do all this the first time around. And I'm like, but everything's different this time. You have a toddler at home and you, you know, you're working and you're carrying a baby inside or maybe you've got two kids at home or, you know, like your baseline changes.
So I think it's important just to educate clients on, on that as well. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. All right. So let's move on to postpartum. So, um, what's what, so what you guys talked about in the intro here, that you really appreciate and hope to teach your clients about their pelvic floor during pregnancy and the hopes that it will help them prepare for postpartum.
Um, So we'd love to hear you discuss why that is important and what are some things that you do talk about to prepare your clients for postpartum. So we'll start with Laura for that one. Yeah. So I think preparing for postpartum is really hard because I think until you've been through it, you don't necessarily realize how hard it actually is.
Um, but I think having a plan going into postpartum with understanding, like one thing that we talk about in our course, which we'll get to later is like the first six weeks, because I feel like there's not a lot of things given for the first six weeks postpartum. Like you can start doing diaphragmatic breathing.
You can start reconnecting to your pelvic floor. You can start moving. Like you're not, there's just so much fear in those first zero to six weeks. You don't. Yes, you should be resting. Yes, you need to recover from the acute um, like healing of birth, but also There's a lot of things that you can do to kind of start your rehab so I think one thing that's important for education and focus during pregnancy to help with postpartum is that like You can start right away.
Like you can, you can go back to some of these very gentle, basic exercises in the first six weeks. And then from there trying to figure out like, what are your postpartum goals and also what do you have time for? Cause I think there's a lot of this like, Oh, I want to be able to work out every day and all this kind of stuff.
And then the baby comes and they don't sleep and you're feeding them. And then. You get a routine and then they go through their four month sleep regression and things change. And so like also just kind of setting up, um, sort of a plan that can be flexible is really important and trying to figure out like, is your, is your goal to walk, you know, three times a week?
And then maybe next week, your goal is to walk three times a week and do five minutes of mobility at the end. And this is something you talk a lot about Rhonda, but like those like small little movement snacks and kind of getting rid of that all or nothing something being better than nothing. And so I think that's a lot of like the prep that we start, um, in pregnancy as well as just expectation management, because I think that's a really hard thing for postpartum, um, that people struggle with.
Yep. I definitely did. Yeah. And I think too, just like having realistic Expectations and just knowing that if you do have a newborn and then also have a toddler, like you're, you're not going to be able to get through all the things or all the workouts that you'd hoped for. And that's okay. And just kind of setting that realistic goal as well.
Um, but I have patients that come in and they're like, I want to do all of this stuff. And it's like, okay, great. Let's start with like the first thing on your list. And like, let's start with the basics. Like I'm. just somebody who's just like, okay, let's start with the foundation, start with that. And then we can start to build on that.
There's no use in kind of jumping a few steps ahead. If you can't even do the foundational movements of like deep breathing, pelvic floor activation, learning how to like stabilize yourself first, um, before kind of jumping into all these different things. Um, Yeah. You quite literally have to walk before you run.
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.
Alrighty. So what are some of the top tips that you discuss with your clients about the pelvic floor health postpartum? I have heard you say connect with the core, but is there anything that you have them start with right away on top of that? Or even just tips? Absolutely. Yeah, um, I would say, like, just before any of that, even just having a health care team to surround you.
I think that's so important. Postpartum can be a really lonely space, like mentally, physically, um, like, especially if you don't have, like, you know, a mama community or like your friends aren't having kids at that moment. I think it's really important to make sure that you postpartum. support yourself and surround yourself with a good healthcare team.
So, um, pelvic physio being one of them. Um, but also like if massage or Cairo or, you know, people that specialize in postnatal care, um, that's one of the things, and then even just mentally too, just having somebody like a counselor, um, or social workers, somebody that does specialize in postnatal, um, mental health.
I think that's also really important. Um, so yeah, having that team is, is critical and in my opinion, and. It's funny because, you know, some patients will come in and they're like, Oh, well, like you already know this. So once you have kids, like you won't need any of it. And it's like, no, I will have Laura on my team.
She will be my pelvic video. And then I will like back myself up with so many other people. But yeah, like, I think that's, um, number one. And then again, like, like Laura said, like goals, things that they want to achieve in that postnatal period and just understanding that it really is a journey. It's not about, you know, sprinting to the finish line.
I think we've heard about this six week kind of postnatal checkup and how grueling it can be sometimes. Um, but that's not the marker for, okay, like you're good to go and do everything. Realistically, women don't feel that way. They feel, um, like they're not ready to do anything really. And so if they get that, go ahead.
They're like, okay, I'm going to go and do all these things because I was told by, you know, my doctor or whatever to, to go ahead. But yeah, that's definitely not the case. And, um, I think too, there's like this, pressure, this ominous pressure to snap back to like what you were. And we can thank social media for that.
It's just like, you know, just all of that is not, it's not right by any means. And so everybody is different. Their healing journey is going to be very different. Um, and so comparing yourself to others. Um, that are kind of at the same level as you postpartum, like that is just a no go. I kind of squash that immediately.
I know. I think I'm going to get t shirts made. I probably say the sentence, it takes almost a year to grow a human, almost a year to heal from growing and birthing a human. I'm just going to put it on a shirt because I say it so many times a week, I will buy that shirt. Yeah. Me too. I'll be your first customer.
I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I think one of the other tips that we talk a lot about with pelvic floor and postpartum with our clients is that it's really important. And this goes for pregnancy, postpartum, and just in general, for your pelvic floor to be flexible and strong. Um, and I think that there's like a bit of sort of some pendulum swinging of like, avoidance of pelvic floor strengthening, almost particularly for people that present maybe, um, with more, uh, baseline tension.
But when we're thinking about preparing for, like, pregnancy management, if your pelvic floor is tight, that could mean it's also week. And so you need to be able to learn how to connect to those muscles and let them relax, but you also need them to be strong because there's way more demand on them during pregnancy than there is at your baseline.
And then when it comes to birth, like we hear this a lot where people are like, I don't know if I'm going to be strong enough. Like, is my pelvic floor strong enough to push out the baby? And it's like, well, during birth, your public floor actually needs to to relax and get out of the way. And then your uterus and your core is what like your, you know, trans or subdominance and your breathing is what's really helping to push the baby out.
And then during postpartum, like in those early days, a lot of people can have, you know, incontinence and feeling like things are like loose and swollen and heavy. So at that point you need to be able to go back to letting your pelvic floor relax, but also being able to contract it. So you can sort of rehab that.
That brain pattern. So if I could give anyone one tip, it would be regardless. And you kind of have to, it is helpful to have an assessment, to know what your baseline is, but regardless of what you've been told, whether you have a hypertonic pelvic floor, tight pelvic floor or not, you still need to be able to be flexible.
So that means being able to relax and you need to be able to contract. Like you still need to be strong. Yeah, so good. I feel like that was, those were light bulb moments for me. And it's interesting. I learned all of this, all of these things after having my two kids, I wish I had known having my kids because I think it, I would have just had such an easier birth.
I think not that my births were, um, you know, bad by any means, but I think just knowledge is power. It would have been nice And then postpartum, yeah, for me, I, I had a pretty strong pelvic floor. I think I knew enough to strengthen, but had no idea about the relaxation and how important that was. So I think that's so huge, Laura.
And I think, yeah, like you both said, just learning about that and being able to connect to your pelvic floor during pregnancy, I Is just going to help you that much more in the postpartum phase because at least then you have that mind body connection. Hopefully there, it might need some fine tuning again because sometimes it, uh, is challenged when you're in the postpartum phase, but that's so important.
And I think also worth mentioning for cesarean moms too. I think, you know, the misconception is if you didn't have a vaginal delivery, pelvic floor doesn't necessarily matter, which is not true. Yeah. Marathon is the same. Yeah, but also, um, cesarean moms are like extremely underserved in my opinion because they have like a, like a different subset of things that come along with a cesarean birth.
But, um, namely like you need scar tissue mobilization and you need, um, like core rehab. And also I find sometimes cesarean moms actually have way more fear in terms of their recovery than. Moms who had vaginal birth, especially if their C section was an emergency because they weren't maybe prepared for it.
And there tends to be a lot of like protective guarding in the belly, fear touching their incision, fear about what this means for subsequent deliveries. If they want to have another baby and, and then they often get left out to dry a little bit more because no one tells them like, Hey, you should go for rehab.
And so by the time they come, They're so like Lost. They don't even know where to start. And there's a misconception, like you said, we had this belly birth, so why am I having pelvic floor symptoms? Shouldn't I have been exempt from this? Right? Isn't it mind blowing to you, just as a little aside, because this is how my brain works, that vaginal or cesarean birth, you have this monumental thing that happens to you in a hospital, and you leave without any, like, physio or OT coming in to teach you how to get out of bed?
Like It's mind blowing, mind blowing. When I was in physio school, I had a placement on inpatient ortho, like hips and knee replacements, and the level of physio that was happening on that floor was like, it was physio dependent, like discharge was physio dependent. Yeah. And the rate of cesareans is like way higher than the rate of hip and knee replacements, and people are just like, here's your diaper, Good luck.
Yeah, it's benonkers when you actually think about it. I always tell my clients you're going to leave with a stack of papers about baby and like maybe half a sheet of paper about your own body. But it's like very true and like, you know, there's probably some, I'm maybe hyperbolizing a bit, but truthfully, like particularly cesarean moms, but really anybody We should be doing better in a hospital setting, in my opinion, for this population.
This is how you get out of bed. This is how you can ease a bowel movement. This is how you can cough. Yeah, you know, I know. And those things don't take long to teach. Mm mm. Like they're not like earth shattering things. It's just that most people don't know. No, yep. Yep. It's crazy. Put physio on the birthing units.
Anyways. And I think that's why what you both are doing is so amazing because, you know, I, I don't know about you, Dayna, um, but for me going into pregnancy, preparing to have a child, I was so focused on baby, right? So, so focused on what am I going to do throughout my pregnancy to keep baby healthy? What am I going to do to prepare for postpartum for the baby?
What, you know, equipment do I need? What training am I going to need? All of these things was all baby focus, which of course is so important. We want to take good care of these little humans, but where's the mom, right? Where is the, guidance and encouragement and education for the mom throughout her pregnancy and for postpartum.
So that is the gap that you both are filling, which is so awesome. So yeah, you know, kudos to you for taking the leap to start this. Um, brand that you're doing and helping moms in their path. So great. So how about you tell us a little bit more about your new online course and Birthwell, what you both are up to.
So we'll start, let's start with Laura for that one. Yeah. So we, um, actually just finished an in person course last day, which was really special. And so we're moving into, um, teaching that course online. So, Basically, we've developed and it's between six, it'll probably be six weeks. We have eight modules, but we're going to try to condense it down.
I'm kind of taking women through like how to connect your core and pelvic floor, how to manage some common pregnancy conditions, how to labor, how to push, how your partner can support you. And then, um, the first six weeks postpartum. So, um, we spent a long time developing it and we're super proud of it.
And we have a lot of, um, like we do talk about in the postpartum module, like how to recover from a C section. Um, we have like, you know, perinatal mental health screens. We have birth plans that we recommend, um, people sit down and discuss with their their family. Their partner. So we're really trying to just give people, um, not only practical information, but also encourage people maybe to have conversations around like, what if things don't go to plan?
What if your mental health isn't feeling great postpartum? Um, and also just trying to like, open up some of those conversations that I feel like are not really had in the healthcare system that ultimately results in recovery being harder than we feel like it needs to be for some of these moms. So basically we're trying to help them be proactive and it's.
for no matter what, even if you're having a scheduled cesarean, like no matter what type of birth you end up having, um, everything in the course is going to be super applicable, super practical and help with the pregnancy journey and then also the postpartum journey as well. Yeah. And like, we understand, like, as pelvic floor physios, like our services, you know, they can, they can get expensive and people who don't have coverage like that can be, um, a lot for them and a lot of, um, investment.
And so we just thought that developing a course that had, you know, everything that they needed included in it. Um, Would just be best for somebody who wasn't able to afford our services for one on one sessions. So it kind of just made sense to us. And it was just kind of a way that we could help the community around us and even abroad as well.
Amazing. Is there anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with? Nadia, we'll start with you. Just that, uh, I guess like just understanding, you know, your body and just getting to know your body a little bit more doesn't matter what age you are, what type of life you are. You could be. planning to have a baby, you could be pregnant, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause.
Um, there's just the research, especially in perimenopause and menopause, there's not very much. And so I think it is crucial that everyone at least See a pelvic floor physio just to kind of get that baseline and just even have some education on what are some things that you can do or what are some other resources you can go to, um, or different practitioners that you can see.
So I think that it's, it's kind of sad how often I have patients in my office that are like, I have no idea what's going on. I just know something's wrong in this general region and I need your help. And so they come very vulnerable, which is amazing. Taking that first step to come in, um, is pretty incredible.
And so trying to make them feel as comfortable and educate, educating them as much as possible in that session, I think is so important. So just again, having, you know, going to get that check in and just seeing a public physio, no matter what stage of life you're in is, um, just very important. Yeah, absolutely.
The other thing I would add about pregnancy and postpartum specifically is that when we see pregnant patients, there tends to be a lot of fear and anxiety around birth, which is understandable. It's a it's a big thing. And it is a medical event. So there is risk associated with it. And oftentimes we tend to hear, you know, Um, on social media or from your neighbor or, you know, whoever feels like sharing their horrific birth story.
We tend to hear a lot of those, um, really scary, really, um, stressful stories. And that makes women, um, and birthing moms just feel like have way more anxiety and way more stress. And what we ultimately see. see when people go into their birth feeling prepared and knowing what medical interventions are and knowing how they can recover regardless of what type of birth they have and feeling sort of like they understood they had someone that they could ask questions to because a lot of times you don't get that time with your primary care provider to ask questions about like what is an epidural How does it work?
What is Pitocin? What is an induction? What is so just having the space to ask those questions can really help bring down anxiety levels. And what we see clinically is that people who go into their birth feeling empowered in that way, like empowered with information, um, and empowered with how to recover, even if they end up having a birth, that is kind of what what most people would say is traumatic.
They seem to do better on the other side. Because they felt like they were more of an active participant in what was happening. They understood in an emergency situation what medical directives were being given. They felt comfortable advocating for themselves. They felt prepared with their, with their care team.
And so That even if you have something that maybe doesn't go your way or doesn't go the way you wanted it in your birth plan at the end of the day, that empowerment makes a big difference in terms of how you feel about your birth and then how you can recover postpartum. And I think that's really important.
Like, we're not, you know, we're not guaranteeing outcomes. We're not trying to say that birth is easy, but we're trying to help people feel empowered so that they can Even if things don't go the way they want, they can still have a good, you know, a relatively good experience and then an easier time recovering postpartum.
And I just think that's important to understand that even no matter how things go, feeling prepared and feeling, feeling empowered going into it can make a big difference. There's some really good research that just supports exactly that. So good. So tell us a little bit more then about your upcoming online course.
So how can people find both of you? How can they sign up for this upcoming course? Um, how do they reach out to both of you? Let's start with you, Laura. Um, so we have an Instagram, um, our, our company's called Birthwell, but our Instagram is called WeBirthwell, um, and as is our website, it's webirthwell. com.
So our website's coming, um, so right now you can reach out to us on Instagram, um, and we're sort of taking signups that way, like sort of early access is kind of starting now. The course will be launching on April the 20th, um, so we'll be taking register, opening registration in the next couple of weeks.
Um, And basically right now, Instagram is, is the best way to find us. And then we can direct you towards the signup page. Once the website is live, which will hopefully be soon. Awesome. So what are both of your individual handles on Instagram too, so people can find you? So mine's at Pelvic Health Harmony, um, and I'm working at Encompass Health and Wellness.
So if you're interested in having a one on one pelvic health consult, that's, um, where you can find me. And mine is, um, at Pelvic Physio by Laura, and I'm also at Encompass Health and Wellness. So you can come find us there, um, or you can sign up for BirthWell and come hang out with us online. Amazing. And I'll put all of that in the show notes so people can easily find both of you.
Thank you so much ladies for being here, for sharing your knowledge and wisdom and passion. You're doing great things. You too. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much.
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