Benefits of Weightlifting for the Pre/Postnatal Periods
What are the benefits of weightlifting during pregnancy and postpartum period?
When we lift weights or increase the stress on our body with an external load, the result is our muscles, tissues, and bones get denser and more resilient to stress and demand.
Why does this matter? When our body is more resilient and stronger, and we are better capable of meeting expected and unexpected demands placed on our bodies. This can enhance our healing postpartum, improve our ability to adapt to increased demands and reduce symptoms of pressure management issues.
Prenatal Fitness: The Mindset Aspect to Prep for Birth
When we think Prenatal Fitness, we typically think of the physical aspect of the workout: the squats, the running, the heart pumping activities. And those are all incredibly important aspects of fitness, especially for pregnancy. We want to enhance the physiological adaptations of pregnancy to improve birth outcomes, such as increasing blood volume an additional […]
3 Labor Hormones
There are a few hormones that influence labor: oxytocin, prostaglandins, beta-endorphins, and catecholamines. Each of these plays an important role in how labor will progress, but too much or too little of some could inhibit labor progress or cause a stall. Let’s explore each of these hormones, and discuss options to enhance or minimize the presence of each.
Core Training During Pregnancy: Beyond the Sit Up
During pregnancy (and most aspects of life) we need a strong, but not rigid, abdominal wall to help maintain pressure within our abdominal cavity, and to assist in stabilizing our spine. The abdominals, particularly the transverse abdominis, or corset abs, and internal obliques, are a component of our deep core system. This deep core system […]
3 Causes of Labor Stalls: The 3Ps
Labor Stalls If labor begins to stall or seems to be pausing temporarily (or it may feel like forever), there are a few things we should consider. 1. Is this actually a stall? For a labor arrest or stall to be “for real,” then dilation, effacement, AND station will NOT be changing for a period […]
Labor with an IV Pole
If you need to labor with an IV pole for whatever reason, it can be helpful to know how to labor with an IV pole to still facilitate that freedom of movement that helps with labor comfort. Why would you need an IV pole during labor? Maybe your labor is being augmented with Pitocin; this […]
Opening the Top of the Pelvis
The top of the pelvis is known as the inlet or pelvic brim. It is the first structure of the pelvis that baby needs to engage, or enter, to begin their descent and rotation through the pelvis. Each level of the pelvis opens with certain biomechanical movement patterns, and these movement patterns tend to be […]
Gestational Diabetes and Exercise
Exercising throughout pregnancy has numerous benefits, to include: increased prenatal comfort; decreased risk of prenatal complications such as gestational diabetes (GDM) and preeclampsia; decreased risk of cesarean delivery; improved fetal tolerance to labor and stress; and decreased length of labor. ACOG recommends the minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week throughout the […]
Understanding the Myofascial Slings and Supporting Prenatal Comfort
During pregnancy, there may be more pelvic girdle pain due to the increased laxity of pelvic joints (and almost all the joints of the body). We want the joints to have more movement, so that baby’s head can navigate through a mobile structure. However, this extra movement can be come unstable, and result in discomfort […]
Breathing, our Pelvic Floor, and Labor
How does our breathing technique affect the tension of the pelvic floor during the first and second stages of labor?? There is a relationship between our jaw tension and our pelvic floor, and how we breath can influence this tension. There is a fascial connection from our skull to our pelvis, that also includes our […]
C-Section Recovery: How to Approach It
C-Sections are major abdominal surgery that unfortunately seems to have very little guidance on recovery, outside of walk a little bit to avoid clots and keep the incision clean. Very few women are referred to physical therapist post c-section, but if you had any other surgery, you would be sent to see a PT. So, […]
How to Open the Pelvis for Birth: Inlet, Midpelvis & Outlet
How to open the pelvis for birth The pelvis has three major components: the sacrum, the coccyx, and the two os coxae, which consist of the ischium, the ilium, and the pubis (aka the two halves of your pelvis). If you’re preparing for labor, understanding how to open the pelvis for birth starts with knowing […]