5 Tips to Manage Pelvic Girdle Pain During Labor
Laboring with pelvic girdle pain, such as pubic symphysis dysfunction or SPD, can make certain laboring positions painful. Movement helps to facilitate the labor process; the more we move the more we can wiggle and rock baby through the pelvis, and increase the space in the various pelvic levels! Learn how to approach labor with pelvic girdle pain, and find relief during pregnancy!
5 Ways Your Partner Can Support Pushing During Birth!
Your partner can help support pushing with a few tips! They can be your best advocate for how you want to push and guiding you to meet your baby.
Cardinal Movements of Labor: 2 Positions to Help Baby
One of the things you may hear while pushing, especially if you have been pushing for a while, is that “baby is rocking back and forth to get under the pubic bone.” But, what does this mean, and is there a way to facilitate this happening faster? There are positions we can emphasize to help create more space in the lower midpelvis to facilitate the final rotation for baby during birth!
3 Ways to Modify Yoga During Pregnancy
Yoga is usually a common recommendation for prenatal exercise, but there is little guidance given on HOW you should be approaching yoga during pregnancy. Should you only attend prenatal yoga classes? Should you continue to attend general population yoga classes? What if your yoga teacher isn’t familiar with prenatal modifications? You can see that while prenatal yoga is a common prenatal exercise recommendation, there can still be a lot of questions on how to safely continue your practice. Let’s break down some tips on how to approach yoga during pregnancy!
3 of the Best Exercises to Include in Your Prenatal Workouts
There are so many exercises that could be beneficial to incorporate into your prenatal workout routines! ACOG and the CDC recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week throughout pregnancy. As long as you focus on intentionally moving your body for 150 minutes per week throughout pregnancy, you’ll feel the benefits of prenatal exercise! In addition to your choice of workout, there are a few exercises that we would recommend including in your weekly routine.
Postpartum Healing: 4 Steps to Start Recovery After Birth
There is a lot we can do early postpartum to begin our healing process! We do not need to wait til we are 4-6 weeks postpartum and received the “all clear” from our provider to then begin to connect with our core and start the steps to recovery after birth. Now, we don’t necessarily want to start a structured fitness program 2 days postpartum or go for a run a week after giving birth.
But we can focus on reconnecting with our breath, core, and pelvic floor, beginning the process of supporting scar healing if you had a perineal tear or c-section, and supporting our core with external support devices.
Birth Planning: Top 5 Ways
When planning for birth, it’s important to remember that there are so many different paths that our birth can take that are completely out of our control. But, it is also just as important to remember that we can still be the primary decision maker no matter what path our pregnancy or birth may take; we can still be empowered to feel informed and heard throughout our entire experience. Having a positive birth experience does not rely solely on WHAT happens, but rather on how we are treated and how much we are heard.
Let’s explore some ways that we can approach planning for birth!
Opening the Pelvis is More Than Doing Squats
Opening the pelvis is more than doing squats. You may have read or heard that if you’re in labor, the BEST move you can do is squats. It’s an upright position, your knees are wide, so it must open the pelvis. Well, it’s more complex than that.
The pelvis has different levels that all open in slightly different ways. There is NO one movement that will open the ENTIRE pelvis. So, if you’re done reading this blog, deep, wide knee squats may not be beneficial for ALL of labor.
6 Early Postnatal Core Exercises to Start Your Core and Pelvic Floor Rehab
Here are some core exercises movements you can do starting almost immediately postpartum! But, surprise, it doesn’t involve crunches or sit ups, AND the focus of these exercises are NOT to slim your waist or any of the other gimmicks that are common to postnatal marketing. Rather, these exercises are to help you re-connect with your core and begin to re-introduce core stabilization postpartum.
Aka, we are wanting to help you HEAL.
Now, it is important to note that these are not intense exercises with a goal to shrink the waste or bounce back. These movements are focused on helping you relearn to connect with your core.
With all these movements, there are no rep schemes or rounds; just move for a few minutes, focusing more on HOW you are doing the movements as opposed to how many.
4 Ways to Modify Single-Leg Movements for Pain
During pregnancy, and even postpartum or pre-pregnancy, we may find that single-leg movements are more challenging and even painful! Common recommendations may be to avoid single-leg movements (but how do you walk then) and just stop doing exercises that hurt. While this is logical advice, it doesn’t necessarily address what is going on and help you find relief so that you can move your body!
3 Tips on How to Connect with Your Pelvic Floor
The pelvic floor has a range of motion similar to other muscles in our body. The pelvic floor needs to lengthen, or stretch, relax, and also shorten!
But it can be confusing on how to feel this movement when we may be used to clenching or always tightening our pelvic floor!
Read this blog to learn more on how to connect with your pelvic floor!
Exercises to Help Baby Engage: Open the Pelvic Inlet
Baby enters the top of the pelvis to begin their descent for labor! Each level of the pelvis opens with different movement patterns or a combination of movement patterns. There is no one movement that opens the entire pelvis at once.