Episode #61: 5 practical tips to minimize pelvic floor symptoms
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In this episode, Rhonda goes over practical, actionable steps you can take to minimize pelvic floor symptoms you are dealing with. If you don’t have the means to - or feel uncomfortable seeing - a pelvic floor physiotherapist, you can start with this list, today, to stay adaptable and resilient to handle the stresses of parent life!
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LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN EPISODE
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Email Rhonda for a list of local PFPT referral sources
Check out this Global Directory to find a PFPT near you
Listen to Episode #25: Tips to have great poops with Aliya Dhalla
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SHOW NOTES:
(0:54) - It’s Rhonda’s first solo episode since Dayna has stepped back from the podcast
(2:09) - What we are talking about today!
(6:48) - Tip #1: Stop sucking in your tummy
(11:18) - Tip #2: Relax your glutes
(14:05) - Tip #3: Avoid straining on the toilet
(17:25) - Tip #4: Breathe when exerting force
(20:40) - Tip #5: Vary up your posture
(25:45) - Episode recap
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Episode #61: 5 practical tips to minimize pelvic floor symptoms
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!
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the pelvic health and fitness podcast. Rhonda here and I'm about to do a solo episode. First solo episode since Dayna made the announcement that she will be stepping back from the podcast.
If you missed that announcement, you can check out our two year Podcast birthday episode. I'll link that in the show notes. Um, long story short, Dayna is pursuing some other tasks right now in her career. And so taking that, taking a step back from the podcast felt right for her. So I am now trying to get used to doing some more solo episodes on my own.
I'm thankful that I had a bunch of guest episodes lined up. So that was an easy transition. Um, but those of you that have a podcast. Uh, know how challenging it can be to do a solo episode. You feel like you're talking to The Void. But, similar to how I felt when I first started my Instagram account, and how awkward it felt to do a story, uh, by myself.
That has gotten better and now I don't really think twice about it. So I know doing these solo episodes will get easier. So today what I'm going to be talking to you all about is some quick tips, five quick easy tips. that you can try to implement to minimize pelvic floor symptoms. So I shared this on my email newsletter.
I will also put that link in the show notes if you would like to get my weekly newsletter where I share super helpful, practical, actionable tips for pelvic floor health and also fitness. Um, and in this newsletter I shared these five tips and I had some feedback that they were helpful. So I thought it would be a great podcast episode.
Podcasts are nice because I can sort of elaborate and give a little bit more nuance than I can in written format as well. And some of us are audio listeners, so sometimes having an audio version of some information is helpful for you all as well. So this is for you if you are dealing with pelvic floor symptoms like leaking, heaviness or prolapse symptoms, um, pain with intercourse.
Pain in general, so pain in your pelvis, your low back, your hips, your tailbone, basically any pain that is associated with pelvic floor dysfunction, which newsflash, if you've had chronic back pain, hip pain, tailbone pain, There is a strong link between that and pelvic floor dysfunction. So if that's something you've been dealing with and you haven't explored that route, highly, highly recommend doing that.
So with this said as well, um, the tips I'm going to be providing today are sort of like quick, easy, actionable, practical tips you can try today. I will say though that the gold standard for pelvic health and for pelvic dysfunction is, is to have an internal pelvic floor assessment. Um, if you are someone local to me, I have a list of referral sources that I would love to send to you.
So if you're local to me in sort of like the KW region, um, shoot me an email info at Rhonda Chamberlain, pt. com. And I would love to send you, uh, on the way to one of my reef referral sources, uh, ones that I trust. If you are outside of this area, if you're out, if you're, you know, different province of Canada or you're in the States or beyond, there is a global directory that you can look up that will give some information about some local pelvic floor physiotherapist for you.
I will also post that in the show notes if you want to check that out. Um, I will also start off by saying, and Dayna and I have said this on the podcast many times, that symptoms are our body's way of talking to us. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's something we have to be afraid of. It doesn't necessarily mean that if you have symptoms with exercise, for example, that you need to stop your exercise program.
It might just be a matter of modifying. I also want to assure you that if you're dealing with things like leaking, heaviness, prolapse symptoms, pain with sex, all of these things are 100 percent treatable. So sometimes the information told and sold to us as moms is, well, now you're a mom. Now you're going to just pee your pants.
And that is just part of being a mom. And also pain with sex is a big one where Sadly, sometimes the advice given to women is, you know, just wait or just have a glass of wine to calm you down and you'll be fine. And so a lot of people are very dismissed when they address these concerns with healthcare providers.
So if that has been you and you've been dismissed in the past, again, highly recommend if you have the means to check out a pelvic floor physiotherapist, have your pelvic floor assessed. And again, there's tons of different things. Um, they can provide you with, uh, tips, strategies, hands on treatment to minimize some of those symptoms and get you feeling back to yourself again.
So today's episode is again, more practical, actionable steps you can take today. So if either a you don't have the means to go see a pelvic floor physio, if maybe you don't feel comfortable doing that, that's fine as well. Um, I will say though, even if you go see a pelvic floor physio, you don't have to have an internal exam.
There is still a lot that can be done in that assessment without having an internal exam. So just a side note there, but again, this information will be things you can implement today. to see if it will help to minimize some of those symptoms that you're dealing with. So the first thing is stop sucking in your tubby.
So we live in a culture where thinness is prized above all. There is immense, sometimes dangerous, pressure put on moms to quote unquote bounce back, which I hate that term, um, to lose the baby weight, get rid of the mommy, Tommy, blah, blah, blah, all of that stuff that, you know, if you've listened to this podcast for a while, that is not.
My that's not within my values to sell or talk about, um, I've done a lot of unlearning myself. I come from disordered eating back background. So selling weight loss and focusing on body changes isn't safe for me. And I also encourage other moms that work with me. You know, if they come with weight loss goals, I'm not going to dismiss that.
I'm going to listen to that. And also I'm going to challenge them to sort of think outside of that and start to see exercise as, you know, having multiple other benefits versus just, you know, weight loss and shrinking your body. So sucking in your tummy, the reason we want to stop doing that, if we can. Is, um, it does, so if we're sucking in our tummy constantly, it does put a little bit more pressure on our core system.
Our core system is our diaphragm at the top, pelvic floor at the bottom, tummy muscles in the front, and then back muscles in the back. So if we're sucking in, we're kind of creating excess pressure in that system, and pressure has to go somewhere. So pressure could potentially be going downwards into our pelvic floor if we're constantly sucking in.
Also, if we're constantly sucking in, we're holding tension in those abdominal muscles. Again, that system all works as a unit. So most likely if we're sucking in and we're constantly holding and gripping our abs, we likely are doing the same thing with our pelvic floor muscles. Our pelvic floor muscles act as any other muscle in our body, we just can't see them and it's hard to think about them because we've never been taught much about them.
But very likely if we're gripping our abs, we're also potentially gripping our pelvic floor. So over time, this can lead to symptoms like leaking, heaviness, and pain. Because that system just gets overused, overworked, too much pressure that is mismanaged that you can't potentially handle when, for example, you go for a run and you start leaking.
That system's fatigued, that system's overworked, those muscles are already shortened, so they can't do sort of like a reflexive response to that running action, and that is what we can lead to some symptoms. So, Let's take the pressure off ourselves to not look like we didn't have a baby. It is totally normal to look like we had a baby, even if we're six months postpartum, one year postpartum, 18 months postpartum, even if you're three, four years postpartum, and you've had multiple kids, you're still in the thick of it.
We're still trying to survive. We're still trying to just get through the day to day of managing a household with children. So if This is multiple layers, so let's just take the pressure off ourself to constantly feel the need to suck in our bellies. That is number one. And again, we can go into a whole other talk about that, about why we feel the need to do that.
But let's just take the pressure off ourself. When you catch yourself sucking in your belly, just give yourself permission to let it go. I find this is um, a good place to practice this is in the shower. So sometimes just having clothing on us can reflexively force us to suck in against the clothing.
This can be especially true with tight clothing. I know I catch myself if I'm wearing pants that don't really fit, that are too small, too tight. And just reflexively. And to kind of have that fit feel a little bit better. So just pay attention to that. When you're in the shower, you don't have clothes to restrict you.
Just take some nice, deep belly breaths. So on the inhale, let your belly go. In that moment, how many of you were sucking in your tummy? I was. Let your belly go, let that tension go, and see if over time practicing that skill, because it is a skill, will help to minimize some of those symptoms. Okay, number two, sort of along the same lines, is relax your glutes.
So this is a big one that I didn't necessarily recognize I was doing a lot of until I learned more about the pelvic floor and more just about different strategies and habits. Um, and this is a habit I still probably for the rest of my life will be trying to, um, stop doing. And that is, yeah, squeezing my glutes, gripping my bum muscles.
And so a lot of times you'll notice yourself doing this when you are standing for a prolonged time. So for me, it's like doing the dishes. Doing the dishes for whatever reason is a time when. I just want to squeeze my glutes. Um, so sometimes this can be again, just a habit that we formed over time for whatever reason.
Sometimes it can be if you've dealt with back pain or hip pain, potentially someone over time has told you to kind of tuck your, your hips under to give yourself a bit more neutral spine. Um, not to say that that's bad, but if we're constantly doing that, we're constantly squeezing our glutes over and over.
that could potentially lead to some symptoms. So catch yourself in those moments, similar to your belly. Give yourself permission to let your glutes go. Um, if you're watching me on the video, you can see, I just did a little jiggle. The advice I give sometimes to moms is, you know, put on Taylor Swift, shake it off and just like wiggle your hips.
Give yourself permission to just let those hips jiggle. Let your bum jiggle. Get some movement through those glutes and feel what it feels like to actually turn off those glutes. So if we, the reason we want to work on this, if we're constantly gripping and squeezing our bum muscles, I always say our glutes and our pelvic floor are like buddies.
So again, similar to the abs, very often, if we're squeezing and gripping our glutes, we're very likely squeezing and gripping our pelvic floor. And again, over time, that habit can lead to symptoms like leaking, heaviness, or pain. Similar to the tummy one, we're kind of overusing, overgripping, um, overcooking that system, using way too much, uh, energy and, um, tension in that system.
So when we do go to do something again, like running or jumping or skipping, that's when leaking can happen. That's when heaviness can happen. That's when pain can happen. So, give yourself permission to let some of that tension go. Shake your glutes. Um, do, you know, what will help with glutes as well is just mobility.
So doing like some hip mobility. We've talked about different strategies to relax the pelvic floor in previous episodes. Um, Stick with those, uh, the biggest thing is just tuning in, noticing if you're doing it, and give yourself permission to let those glutes go. Okay, the third one is, um, to minimize your pelvic floor symptoms.
Avoid straining on the toilet if you can. And I will share this episode in the notes as well. Um, Alia Dalla, Box Wellness Co. did an excellent episode with us, um, talking about how to have healthy poops. And yeah, the link between Straining and constipation is very strong. Um, if you're someone that has a tendency to strain and have constipation, the link between that and pelvic floor symptoms, yeah, it's there.
So, if this is you, if you're someone that, you know, has chronic constipation, find yourself straining, if you have a history of hemorrhoids, anything like that. Um, and you're also dealing with pelvic floor symptoms. There is potential that that's, uh, there's a link there. So the biggest thing for avoiding straining on the toilet, a couple of tips there is, uh, number one, making sure that you're drinking enough water.
So a good rule of thumb for that is half your body weight in ounces. So, you know, get some, um, containers that. With that amount of water. So if it's like 2 to 3 water bottles in a day, or if you want to get a giant one that tracks your water intake, that's a great way to do it. And just try to make sure that you're getting that much water in your day.
Having that water will help to soften your stool and help it. Um, the second one is making sure we're getting enough fiber. So 25 to 30 grams for women is, is usually the standard there. But check with a dietitian or your doctor, if you need more guidance on that. Um, the added fiber again, we'll just help to soften the stool, help it pass more easily.
So you're not straining. And then the third tip with toileting is making sure that you're, we're trying to use either a step stool. Um, or a squatty potty under our feet. Reason being is having our feet higher than our hips, or sorry, having our knees higher than our hips, so having our feet raised, we'll just put a little bit better position, um, angle on the colon.
To help our stool pass more easily. So I use at home. I use my kid's stepstool. I don't have a squatty potty use my kid's stepstool. That seems to work. Um, I know Aaliyah has talked about on Instagram. If you're traveling just, um, the garbage can in the room, just put that on its side and you can put your feet up on that.
If you don't have anything. It does make a huge difference. This is something I was sort of skeptical of myself, and now I don't want to poop without it. When I do poop without it, I can feel the difference. So give that a go. The reason we want to make sure we're doing that and trying not to strain is you can picture that downward strain, that downward pressure.
That constant bearing down and really pushing into our bum can really also put a lot of pressure and, uh, tension into that, the pelvic floor area as well. They're all connected. They're all related. Um, so yeah, if we do that constantly over time, that can contribute to pelvic floor dysfunction again, like leaking heaviness or pain.
So that is number three. Try to see if you can have healthier poops. The fourth one is breathing when you're exerting force, and I will say with this one, just breathing in general. So, I don't know about you all, but again, before I learned about my pelvic floor, I didn't realize how often I held my breath when I was lifting things, not even heavy things.
I would catch myself even just carrying, like, the laundry downstairs to the basement, even if it's not that heavy. Holding my breath, I get to the bottom of the stairs and I realize I just held my breath that whole way down. Um, also, you know, picking up my kids, I'd catch myself holding my breath. I don't want to fear monger.
I don't want to say like, oh my goodness, if you're holding your breath, it's terrible for your pelvic floor. That's not true. But again, similar to all the ones I just mentioned, it's the habits, it's the repetitiveness of these skills, of these habits. that potentially could lead to issues. So don't, you know, fear if you do something and you're like, oh my goodness, I held my breath and Rhonda said this is so bad for my pelvic floor.
That is not the goal here. Just start to tune in, start to pay attention. Breathing, again, our core system works as that canister. So we have Diaphragm at the top, pelvic floor at the bottom, tummy muscles at the front, uh, back muscles at the back. Think of it almost like a pop can. So if we are holding our breath and we're not letting kind of air through our diaphragm, pressure again has to go somewhere.
So pressure could potentially be pushed down into our pelvic floor or into diastasis, constantly holding our breath, we could be pressuring into our tummy a little too often. So. Remember to breathe. Um, a nice little cute, uh, saying that I learned from another pelvic floor physiotherapist, Julie Weave, is blow before you go.
So if you're about to pick something up, so let's say you're picking up your kiddo, deep breath in, breathe out. And then pick them up just to make sure that again, we're sort of like evenly distributing the pressure in that canister when we do that heavy skill. So this would come into especially more, um, play if you're doing heavier lifting.
So I, you know, I've talked on the podcast about how I'm getting back into Olympic weight lifting, and it's been interesting, you know, knowing the knowledge I have. being aware and paying attention to my breathing. I think in the past before I knew, before I knew any of these things, I held my breath a lot.
And I think I potentially had a tendency of bearing down because I didn't know any better. So now I just focus on breathing. So sometimes it's, you know, I deep breath in at the top of say a squat and then breathe out throughout, or I breathe in as I go down, breathe out on the way up. Again, it doesn't necessarily matter the, um, the way you choose to breathe, just remember to breathe.
So even if it's like an audible breath, so when you're doing a squat or you're picking up your kiddo, so inhale and then like if you need to kind of blow out as if like you're blowing through a straw to remind yourself to breathe. I find that helps me and I find that helps my clients. So just remembering to breathe when you are lifting even light things, just keep breathing.
Um, okay. And then number five, a quick tip to help you minimize your pelvic floor symptoms is varying up your posture. I love talking about posture with my clients because a lot of us, myself included, were taught that we have to have perfect posture in order to, that's in quotes, perfect posture in order to feel our best.
And I've done a lot of unlearning and a lot of, um, yeah, just like thinking about this differently as my time has gone on being a physiotherapist. And again, I used to think that you had to have perfect posture, you couldn't slouch, you couldn't, you know, round your back or that would be damaging and dangerous to your body.
And that just isn't true. There's no literature to support that. And, if anything, if we're teaching our, our clients that they have to have perfect posture all the time, it's going to create a lot of fear when they do, for example, round their back, um, and we're then teaching them to avoid rounding their back, which, in day to day life, that is just something we do.
So, why, you know, why not help people train? into those rounded positions and help them strengthen in different ways that include bending forward that that way when they do that in day to day life it's not they're not afraid of it and it's also your their body's prepared for it so when it comes to posture I like to say that Instead of, you know, saying we have good versus bad posture, is we just have postures we like to do a lot of.
And then other postures, maybe we don't do as much, that maybe we could use to do a little bit more. So slouching. Slouching is, you know, the biggest one. We're all taught like slouching is so terrible for us. Again, I won't say that that it's not bad for us. It's just we tend to do it a lot. And our body likes variety.
our body responds well to different positions and movement. Um, it doesn't deal well with static sustained positions. So it's not the position that's the problem. It's the fact that we're in it too much throughout the day, especially this is very true for new moms. So many of us, you know, potentially had active jobs before we had kids, or at least, you know, maybe not active, but we were driving to work, walking to our job.
Even if it's not, uh, like a stand up job. And then we go have, have our kiddos, and we're sitting on the couch, we're feeding multiple, multiple times a day. We're, you know, bending in different positions that maybe we're not used to. We're sitting on the floor maybe more than we're used to. So it's not that those things are bad, it's just that our body isn't used to that.
isn't used to that much sitting, isn't used to those different movements and positions. So this is where varying up your posture and adding different positions and postures throughout your day is going to help. So how does this relate to pelvic floor symptoms? So if we're sort of slouch and rounded and not, um, in that upright position ever, we're kind of just like in that slouch position too often, um, our core system again, think of it as that core canister.
does really well when it's stacked. So when, so if you think like rib cage stack over your hips, that's when it's in a really great position, especially if we're going to lift, especially if we're going to, you know, do an exercise that stack position is really optimal. So When we're slouched, we're not necessarily like engaging our muscles the same.
We're not engaging our core. We're not engaging our back muscles. We're just kind of slouching in that position and just hanging off our tissues. So if we start to incorporate a more upright position more often. This is where I love talking to my clients about the importance of strength training because strength training, you know, working on a squat, working on a deadlift, working on those types of things really encourages you to have that stacked position, have that nice neutral spine.
So adding those into your day. Not that they're better for you, but just that it's adding more variety and it's adding more movement and it's adding different movement than what you're used to doing as a mom in your day to day life. So, if that makes sense, we're just giving a different stimulus to that core system, um, adding variety so that our tissues aren't constantly in the same positions and feeling strained from that repetitiveness of those positions.
Um, that is what's going to help, so. Don't stress about having perfect posture, quote unquote, all the time. Just remember every so often to sit up straight. Remember every so often to do some stretching. Go for walks. Movement, right? Movement, our body loves that. Going for walks. Doing some strength training.
Signing up for a program, Shameless Plug, Like Strong at Home, that encourages you to move in different ways and strengthen your body. So that it's just more adaptable and resilient to handle the stresses of mom life because it is hard and challenging on our body. So hopefully that makes sense. So again, just a quick review, five quick tips you can try today to see if it helps to minimize your pelvic floor symptoms, like leaking, heaviness, or pain anywhere in the body.
Number one, stop, stop sucking in your tummy. Number two, relax your glutes. Number three, avoid straining on a toilet. Number four, making sure that you're breathing when you're exerting force or just breathing in general. Number five, varying up your posture. So let me know if those were helpful for you all, give them a try, see if it makes a difference.
Like any habit, it takes a while to continue working on these things. It's, you know, lifelong for many of us. Um, but I hope this helps again, reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks so much for tuning in. 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.
