Preparing your body for labor can make all the difference in your birth experience. By focusing on pelvic floor exercises during pregnancy, you can improve comfort, support your baby’s position, and set yourself up for a smoother delivery. In this blog post, I’ll share my personal pelvic floor birth prep routine, the exercises I incorporated, and how they contributed to a fast labor, minimal pushing, and no tearing.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for more weekly workouts and educational videos! We publish one new workout video and 2-3 educational videos a week on our channel.
Why Focus on the Pelvic Floor?
The pelvic floor plays a crucial role in supporting your pregnancy and facilitating labor. It acts as the base of your core, stabilizing your pelvis, supporting your baby, and helping guide the baby into the optimal position for birth. Imbalances, tightness, or overactivity in certain areas can lead to discomfort during pregnancy and may impact the baby’s positioning for labor.
For me, the right half of my pelvic floor was overactive, and the back half was tight. These imbalances contributed to discomfort, including sacroiliac (SI) joint pain, bladder urgency, and a feeling of pelvic heaviness. By addressing these issues through targeted exercises, I created space for my baby to move into an optimal position for birth, leading to a smoother labor.
My Pelvic Floor Birth Prep Routine
My routine focused on releasing uneven tension in my pelvic floor and strengthening it through a full range of motion. Here’s a breakdown of the workout:
Warm-Up: Releasing Uneven Tension
Half Lunge Stretch
- Target: Right pelvic floor release.
- Position: Right leg forward, focus on keeping weight on the big toe and rotating your belly away from the thigh.
- Benefit: Helps to offload the right side of the pelvic floor and create balance.
90/90 Hip Mobility Switches
- Target: Pelvic mobility and hip rotation.
- Position: Sit with one leg externally rotated and the other internally rotated. Alternate between stretching side body and hip flexors.
- Benefit: Improves overall pelvic mobility and prepares the pelvic floor for labor.
Tabletop Hip Shifts
- Target: Posterior pelvic floor release.
- Position: Place a yoga block under one knee, shift weight over to that side, and move your pelvis forward and back.
- Benefit: Relieves tension in the SI joint, tailbone, and back of the pelvis.
Strengthening Exercises: Building Dynamic Pelvic Floor Movement
Standing Hip Shifts
- Target: Glutes and hip flexibility.
- Position: One foot on a yoga block, shift weight diagonally over the elevated leg.
- Benefit: Encourages dynamic movement of the pelvic floor.
Lateral Hip Shifts with Weight
- Target: Adductors and glutes.
- Position: Feet wider than hips, shift weight side to side while rotating your upper body.
- Benefit: Strengthens and stretches the pelvic floor and improves hip mobility.
Archer Row and Press with Resistance Band
- Target: Upper body rotation and pelvic alignment.
- Position: Use a resistance band to row and press while shifting into your hips.
- Benefit: Integrates upper body movement with pelvic floor activation.
Benefits of My Routine
Incorporating this workout into my pregnancy routine provided several benefits:
- Reduced Discomfort: Addressing pelvic imbalances relieved my SI joint pain and bladder urgency.
- Optimal Baby Positioning: Improved pelvic floor flexibility allowed my baby to engage in a great position for labor.
- Smoother Labor: Active labor lasted just 90 minutes, with only five pushes and no tearing.
Tips for Success
- Focus on Balance: Your body is naturally asymmetrical, so you may need different exercises for each side.
- Incorporate Mobility: Stretching and dynamic movements prepare your pelvic floor for the range of motion required during labor.
- Strengthen Smartly: Build strength across the pelvic floor, not just tightness, to allow for flexibility during delivery.
Conclusion
If you want to incorporate these exercises into your pregnancy routine, check out our prenatal fitness programs at MamasteFit.com. Use code YOUTUBE10 for 10% off our offerings, including bundled programs that cover prenatal fitness, childbirth education, and pelvic floor prep.
Prenatal Support Courses
Learn the science of pregnancy and birth to take the mystery of labor away! Understand why you are feeling what you feel, and learn strategies to confidently move through pregnancy and birth!
- 9h+ of Video
- Support Group
- Close Captioning
- 5 Workouts/Week
- Gym Workouts
- Self-Paced
Instructor
GINA
Workout on-demand with our prenatal fitness workout videos! Each workout is 30-40 minutes to follow along as you exercise at the same time!
- Birth Prep
- All Trimesters
- Mobility Work
Instructor
GINA
Find comfort and relief from pelvic girdle pain throughout your pregnancy and postpartum period! This program incorporates myofascial sling focused exercises to stabilize across the pelvic girdle joints.
- 3 Weeks
- On Demand Workout Videos to Follow