Gina: Welcome to the Mamastefit Podcast. In this episode, we are going to be breaking down the statement your pelvis is too small and explaining what adequate pelvis even means. We will also share pelvic opening exercises for a smooth labor…
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Gina: Usually I see these statements thrown around for my clients who are wanting a VBAC or a vaginal birth after Caesarean birth by their provider. In some situations I can understand why the provider may make this assumption. Their last labor was an arrest or pause or stall of labor where the labor progress seemed to stop.
So the assumption here is that the pelvis is just too small for baby to pass through, which can be referred to as CPD.
Roxanne, can you explain CPD and why this is a common, although inaccurate diagnosis?
Roxanne: So CPD stands for Cephaloplvic Disproportion and basically this just means that your pelvis is too small for your baby. And it could be that your baby is too large. So like, maybe you had gestational diabetes and you grew a baby that was very large for your body, or your pelvis truly is too small. And the safest route usually for these cases is a C section.
First we’ll touch on like baby is too big. So a macro stomach baby is the medical term used for a large baby and this can happen for various reasons, but most of the time it happens because someone has gestational diabetes and it’s uncontrolled. In some ways that leads to the baby growing bigger than it normally would have. Very rarely grow babies that are too large for our bodies, unless your partner is vastly larger than you are, like 2ft larger than you, or just like a bigger person. Generally most of us are not going to grow a baby that is too large for us. But sometimes if we have gestational diabetes and it’s not being controlled well, with either diet or medication, we could potentially grow a baby that’s too big for us due to insulin. So our body produces insulin to control our blood sugars, but with gestational diabetes, our blood sugars are not as controlled by this insulin. So baby is getting more sugar from our blood and then they’re producing their own insulin so the insulin does not cross the placental barrier. Baby produces their own. And insulin is also a growth hormone. So potentially, if your blood sugars are uncontrolled during pregnancy, baby is getting more of that sugar and producing more of that insulin and leading them to grow bigger and bigger, especially in the shoulders.
Other risk factors of having a larger baby is having a boy versus a girl. And then if you go past your due dates, potentially the baby could get larger and larger with the actual pelvis being too small for your baby. This is not a common occurrence, occurs in like one out of 250 births, if that. And this is where your pelvis truly is too small for a baby to come through. And in these cases, it’s like baby never will engage into the pelvis because again, the opening is too small. No matter what you do, that baby just never engages into that pelvis. It is commonly used, though, as a reason for C sections where you are in labor and your labor stops progressing. It’s commonly used as a reason for a C section being like, oh, your pelvis was too small for your baby and that’s why your labor stopped progressing, when in actuality, it probably was something else. Not true cephaloplvic disproportion. For people who have true cephaloplvic disproportion, this is usually someone who had some sort of childhood illness that caused their pelvis to form differently, or you had some sort of injuries such as a car accident that required your pelvis to be reassembled. And especially if you have rods in your pelvis, those could be true reasons for cephaloplvic disproportion. But again, it is really rare for that to be the true case.
Gina: So CPD is not common and likely over diagnosed. But then why did labor stall? And there’s a lot of reasons for labor stall, commonly referred to as the three or the four P’s, depending on if you combine one of the P’s or not.
So the three P’s are going to be passenger passage and power. And some folks throw a fourth one, which is psyche, but we combine power and psyche together. The three work together to facilitate labor progress. And so if there was a labor arrest or a stall in your labor, it could be due to a number of reasons.
So one, it can be due to the passenger. So maybe baby’s position was not well aligned to the pelvis. Maybe baby’s head was tilted or extended so they presented larger than normal. Maybe there was pelvic floor tension or just overall tension, which be related to the passage. So the actual path that baby is navigating through or maybe the birther was fatigued, starving or even sick, so it was affecting the strength of the contractions or the power and maybe there was not a lot of movement happening and so again affecting that passage where the pelvic diameters were not increasing or creating more space. And this is what we are going to break down more in this episode.
How can we create more space in the passage or the pelvic levels to facilitate opening the pelvis for baby to descend and rotate more easily?
And so there was a time they used to do x rays to measure the pelvis and they would measure each diameter and if your pelvis was too small, it was an automatic C section. Unfortunately, these static measurements or even your provider doing an internal or external assessment of your pelvis are not an accurate understanding of your pelvic opening. Different types of movement patterns open each pelvic level in a different way. And so if we are in a static position, we are in one type of opening, which is not an accurate assessment of your pelvis’s capability to create space throughout pregnancy. We have an increase in the hormone relaxin that increases joint laxity or in some cases throughout pregnancy. We have an increase in the hormone relaxin that increases joint laxity or it increases how much that joint can move. This relaxin results in greater displacement of the pelvic girdle joints. And there are studies that look at pelvic displacement during pregnancy and it’s significant compared to outside of pregnancy. And we want this displacement to happening or this increase in space to happen because human babies have big old heads. And speaking of big heads, if your baby’s head is measuring in a high percentile, it is okay.
Roxanne and I both have given birth to babies with 99th percentile head sizes. And the cool things about babies heads is they mold and they change shape as they fit through the pelvis.
Roxanne, can you talk more about baby’s skulls and how they change shape to accommodate the pelvic space?
Roxanne: So, baby’s cranial bones are not fully fused yet, like ours are. So their bones can overlap one another and move and adjust as they’re navigating through the pelvis. And this is the reason that they’re not fused is one to allow for their head to grow as they’re getting bigger, but to also accommodate the pelvis.
So a baby’s head is not the same size that it will be when it comes out of the pelvis as it will be like the next day. And that’s why babies a lot of the time will have like cone heads because they were adjusting to the pelvis and the room that was available to them with their bones. But the different portions of the head move differently. So this is why babies who are op and their chins are extended, they’re not fully flexed, so their chin is not tucked into their chest are more likely to have a stall in labor from position. Because the cranial bones in the front of our head do not adjust and overlap as easily as the cranial bones in the back of our head.
So when baby’s chin is tucked and they are facing the more optimal way, those cranial bones move and adjust easier than the front bone so that they’re able to navigate the pelvis a little bit quicker and a little bit easier than someone whose baby is extended or facing sunnyside up. So the other thing that we’re going to look for is the circumference of the baby’s presenting portion of their head. So if a baby’s chin is extended, a larger circumference and a larger area of their head is trying to present into the pelvis, whereas when their chin is tucked into their chest, it is a smaller portion of their head. And again, those bones are going to mold easier than when their chin is extended. So it may not be that your baby is necessarily too big for your pelvis or your pelvis is too small for your baby. It just could be that your baby’s largest portion of their head is trying to present into your pelvis another thing that they could be doing is most babies, we want them to come straight down, so their head is straight coming into the pelvis. But some babies will tilt their head to the left or to the right. And then this causes, again, a larger portion of their head is trying to present into a pelvis. This is almost like a toddler trying to jam a square that is tilted into a diamond into the square hole. No matter how many times you try to jam that diamond shaped square into the square hole, it’s not going to fit until they turn the square and then it will fit.
Gina: So if your baby has a big head, it’s okay. Our babies all have gigantic heads, and they still have maintained a large head size even until now. Whenever we go to our pediatrician appointment, their heads are always like off the chart. It was a poor baiting choice on our part to marry men with giant heads, but we did it and they came out just fine. So not only do our baby’s head change shape and size to fit through our pelvis, our pelvis can also change shape and size to accommodate for our baby as they navigate through the pelvic space.
And so if we look at our pelvis, it has three distinct levels. We have the pelvic inlet, which is the top of the pelvis. This is where baby is going to first enter or engage into the pelvis. We have the mid pelvis, which is the bony structure that baby is rotating through. And then we have the pelvic outlet, which is the bottom of the pelvis, where baby is actually going to extend their head underneath the pubic arch to be born. Each pelvic level opens with different types of movements, and there is no one movement that opens the entire pelvis.
So if someone says spread your knees really wide to make space for a baby, or do this to open your pelvis, I would ask them, which part am I trying to open? And so the inlet of the pelvis or the top part of the pelvis is going to open more with external rotation of the femurs or knees out, ankles in, or think like deep squat type movements. So things where the knees are moving away from midline is going to be opening the top of the pelvis from side to side. Now, we also want the front to the back of the pelvis to open more. And this is where a posterior pelvic tilt or tucking the butt underneath is going to create more space from the front to the back of that pelvic inlet. The reason why is when we have this posterior pelvic tilt or think like tucking your butt underneath or rounding or flattening your low back, this is moving the sacral promontory, which is the junction between the lumbar spine and the sacrum, or the junction between your low back and your pelvis. It’s going to move it backwards. And so it’s going to create more space from the front to the back of the pelvis. And so external rotation of the femurs or wide knees, open hip positions are going to create more space side to side in the top of the pelvis and tucking the butt underneath or that posterior pelvic tilt is going to create more space front to back.
In addition to the posterior pelvic tilt, an interior pelvic tilt or going the opposite. So we’re arching in the back or poking the butt out is going to change the pelvic brim angle, which can sometimes make it easier for Baby to enter into the pelvis. In addition, an anterior pelvic tilt makes it easier to find external rotation. So having that slight arch can sometimes make it easier for you to find a deeper external rotation with the femurs, which can create more space in the top of the pelvis. And so that might be a little bit confusing because both the posterior pelvic tilt and an anterior pelvic tilt are opening the top of the pelvis. And so ideally, what we’re looking for is kind of this pelvic tilting type movement.
So you’re tucking the butt underneath and then you’re moving forward to find a little bit more arch and rounding in the back because baby is going to be kind of wiggling and rocking through the pelvis. And so lots of movement is going to be really helpful here.
So, top of the pelvis, we’re looking for movements like deep squats, forward and backward rocking type movements where we’re rounding in the back and arching pelvic tilting. And so those are the movements that are going to help create more space in the top of the pelvis. And typically this is movements that are usually recommended for birth, so squats are usually recommended. Spreading your knees super wide are all movements that are very common for, quote, unquote, opening the pelvis. And what’s great is those movements are also easy to find during pregnancy because they’re common postural tendencies. So a lot of us tend to live in more external rotation and more of that anterior pelvic tilt or arching in our back because these are really comfortable for us. These are common postural tendencies outside of pregnancy and they become a little bit more exaggerated during pregnancy as well.
So finding external rotation, anterior pelvic tilt easy to find. And so when it comes to the top of the pelvis, if you’re thinking like, what kind of movements can I do during pregnancy to prepare to open this pelvic level, we want to focus more on that posterior pelvic tilt. So focusing on making that easier to find. And we can do that by releasing in the lat. So your back muscles also releasing on the front side of the legs, that’s going to help you find that more rounded position.
The next level of the pelvis is the mid pelvis. And so this can be divided into two levels. We have the upper and the lower mid pelvis. The mid pelvis is essentially the bony structure that baby is rotating through. And so baby’s going to enter usually in a sideways position like lot or left occiput transverse. This means the back of the head is towards the left hip and then they’re going to rotate internally or towards the front. So they’re going to move through loa left occiput anterior, so they’re diagonal to the front all the way until they finish OA. So back of the head is towards the front of the pelvis. And so there’s lots of rotation and movement happening through this pelvic level. The upper mid pelvis is going to open more with external rotation. So open hip positions only on one side though. So we’re thinking one knee is moving away from midline. Also a little bit of that anterior pelvic tilt is going to help to make external rotation easier. So that little bit of arching in the back plus abduction, so moving away from midline.
So the combination of those three movements is going to help to open the upper mid pelvis. And this is where baby is beginning their rotation into the pelvis. So creating that space up there is going to help baby begin their rotation into the mid pelvis. After that, we’re moving into the lower mid pelvis and this is going to open more with opposite movement. So internal rotation or knees in, ankles out with a slight posterior pelvic tilt. So tucking the butt underneath makes it easier to find internal rotation and then adduction, so bringing the leg towards midline. So the combination of those three things is going to help to open the lower mid pelvis asymmetrically. So when I open the upper mid pelvis, the opposite lower mid pelvis is opening and then vice versa. And so movements that are going to help to open the mid pelvis is going to be a lot of side to side movements asymmetrical movements like swaying, like hip circles, anything where everything is kind of side to side is going to be more of that mid pelvis opening. And so similar to the inlet, the movements that are usually easy to find are going to be that external rotation and that anterior pelvic tilt. These are common for pregnancy. And so during our prenatal preparation, the movements that we can have more of an emphasis on will be that internal rotation and that posterior pelvic tilt.
So can I bring my knee towards midline? Can I bring my pelvis and rotate it on top of the femur, think belly towards thigh type of positions. And then also, again, really emphasizing that posterior pelvic tilt. Now the bottom of the pelvis is going to be the pelvic outlet. So this is where baby is going to extend their head underneath the pubic arch to be born. Typically with the pelvic outlet we are pushing, we’re seeing some baby, we might see some hair and then baby is going to be into crown and they be born. And then they’re going to rotate their shoulders through the pelvis as they finish their birth. The pelvic outlet is going to open more with internal rotation of the femurs. And so knees in, ankles out, bilaterally on both sides. In addition, remembering that that posterior pelvic tilt makes it easier to find internal rotation, a slight posterior pelvic tilt can help create more space in the bottom of the pelvis as well, because it makes it easier to find internal rotation. Now, we’re not trying to find a complete tuck underneath and we’re not trying to do the opposite of inlet opening, which is sometimes a common misunderstanding is well, if a posterior pelvic tilt creates more space in the inlet, then an anterior pelvic tilt must create more space in the outlet. And that’s not necessarily true because the pelvic inlet has a sacral promontory that we’re trying to move out of the way, while the pelvic outlet does not have that. And a slight posterior pelvic tilt makes it easier to find internal rotation, which is going to influence that pelvic space a whole lot more.
And so if we want to focus on creating more space in the outlet and we want to focus on creating more space front to back, we just want to make sure that there’s space for the sacrum to move. So ideally, not being flat in our back, maybe slightly tilted sideline or an upright position can help to accommodate that opening from front to back within the pelvic outlet.
And so similar to the other pelvic levels, the movements that we want to focus on during our prenal preparation are going to be that internal rotation in addition to that slight posterior pelvic tilt. And so things that are going to help with that internal rotation are going to be like your hamstrings and adductor strengthening because that helps pull the pelvis into internal rotation and then also releasing in those lats and those hip flexors when trying to open the pelvis. We may experience a stall if specific movement patterns are more difficult to achieve, which is more likely with internal rotation aspect of opening the lower half of the pelvis. We tend to favor external rotation during pregnancy, which opens more of the top half of the pelvis. And this can result in a tighter posterior pelvic floor lengthened hamstrings and adductors. And so we need the posterior pelvic floor to stretch and the hamstrings and adductor to shorten to bring the pelvis into internal rotation and open the lower half of the pelvis.
So like I was saying, if I had to pick one movement to use to prepare for birth, I would focus on something that emphasizes internal rotation. You may hear do all the squats to prep for birth, but I would say do all the hinges and internally rotated lunges and staggered stance movements because this is probably more helpful for birth preparation and preventing those late labor stalls. So during your pregnancy you can focus on incorporating movements like these to support birth preparation.
In episode three of our podcast, we discuss this more in depth and then we include a lot of these exercises within our prenatal fitness programs. If you want to dive deeper into how to open the pelvis, plus to prepare to open the pelvis, you can join our childbirth education course in prenatal fitness programs, where we integrate pelvic opening exercises throughout the entire program. Our prenatal fitness program has three versions. Our 40 week program is delivered via Team Builder as a list of exercises with demo videos and is more geared towards the athlete. So we’re using like barbells, cable machines and weights. This program takes about 45 to 75 minutes to complete and is the program that we have personally used during our pregnancies. We also have a 40 week mini program in the app, but the workouts only take 15 to 20 minutes and they require less equipment. So if you’re short on time but prefer to work out at your own pace, this can be a great option. And it still includes the pelvic opening work. Both the 40 week programs sync to your current week of pregnancy, so you could start it at any time. So if you’re 20 weeks pregnant, you would start at week 20 of our program. If you’re 30 weeks pregnant, you would start at week 30. We offer a one time payment option and then a monthly payment option. If you do the one time payment option, you can use it for future pregnancies at no additional charge. If you do the monthly, you can just grab the months that you need and then cancel at any time. And then we have our prenatal on demand program that is a video that you follow as you work out at the same time with both fitness and yoga. This is synced to your trimester and also has an ebook that you can follow for more workouts.
So we want to open the pelvis for birth, but which level do we want to open and how do you know which position is best?
Roxanne, can you explain fetal station or how someone might know where their baby is within the pelvis?
Roxanne: So fetal station is how high or low within the pelvis that baby is, and it’s based off of these bones called the issue spines. That’s kind of like the middle portion of your pelvis. The issue spines are zero station. So minus station is anything above these issue spines, and plus station is anything below. Usually around plus two is when we’re able to see the top of baby’s head without you having to push or move the labia out of the way. And that’s usually the time that pushing is for sure. It’s time to push when baby is well engaged into the pelvis. Usually this is about minus one station in the pelvis. But everybody’s body is a little slightly different on what station you’re able to feel things, just because we all have different kind of vaginal canals in a way.
Usually if baby is above minus two stations, so they’re not well engaged into the pelvis. This is when we’re doing more of those forward to back type movements to try to get baby engaged into the pelvis so we can tell when baby needs to engage based off the intuitive movements that you are doing. Which is, like, forward and backwards or like tucking the butt underneath to try to make more room for baby to engage into the pelvis. Or by doing a cervical exam and seeing that baby is minus two or above.
When baby’s in that mid pelvis, this is when we’re going to see those more asymmetrical type movements. So like side lunges or just lunges really in general or anything where you’re like shifting in the hips, side to side, those would be signs to me that your baby is probably in the mid pelvis. And if I did a cervical exam, it would be minus one to plus one station of the baby would be like a confirmation that, yep, baby’s in the mid pelvis. You’re slowly shifting to kind of shimmy baby through that middle portion of your pelvis.
And then when baby is in the outlet, this is plus two and below. So normally we can just kind of see the top of baby’s head at plus two and we’re like, yep, that baby’s plus two. But sometimes internal rotation of the femurs is beneficial to make more room in that outlet. So you might start noticing that you’re like intuitively kind of bringing your knees together and also bearing down usually at this point, especially if you do not yet have an Epidural.
Gina: So how can you tell where baby is in the pelvis? Because that’s what’s going to help you determine what type of movements to do first is going to be that cervical or vaginal exam to look at where baby is in relation to that issue spine.
This is a subjective exam, though, and so one person’s minus two might be somebody else’s minus one. But if you have an Epidural, this can be a really helpful tool to help you know what type of movements to use with a peanut ball to create space in the pelvis. But if you don’t have an Epidural and you’re unmedicated, I find your intuitive movement patterns to be much more accurate in assessing where baby is within your pelvis. And so if baby’s in the top of the pelvis, I see my clients tend to kind of rock forward and backwards. They’re really tucking their butts underneath. And this is the movement patterns they tend to favor. They’re doing the movement patterns that open the top of the pelvis more. And so this is a clue for me that baby is still trying to engage into the pelvis.
And so as a birth worker, I am not trying to interrupt somebody’s labor because I know where their baby is and that I know better than them. You know what’s best with you and your baby and with your own personal labor. And based on my experience as a birth worker, I can enhance the movements that you’re doing. Or if you’re feeling stuck, I can give you recommendations based on the movement that you’re doing. But I’m never going to interrupt somebody and tell them to get into a specific movement because I know better than them by any means, because you know best about your own birth. If baby is engaged and rotating through the mid pelvis, I tend to see my clients start to sway more side to side during their contractions. And so they’re doing lots of hip circles, lots of swaying. Everything becomes very asymmetrical all of a sudden.
And that’s my big clue that baby has engaged into the pelvis. For some folks, you will start labor with baby already engaged, so you’ll kind of skip the whole inlet portion of the pelvis. And being at a certain phase of labor is not associated with a certain pelvic level either. So inlet is not early labor, mid pelvis is not active labor. So you can start your labor in the mid pelvis. You can do the majority of your labor in the inlet, and the baby flies through the mid pelvis, and then you’re pushing. So there’s not a specific pelvic level associated with a certain phase of labor.
When my clients babies are starting to get really low and they’re starting to feel that pressure and they’re getting ready to start pushing, they start to really favor shifting their weight into one leg repeatedly, because your stance leg is the leg that we tend to internally rotate. So when you put weight into one leg, that femur comes into internal rotation. And so that’s creating that space in the bottom of the pelvis. And so I’ll see folks kind of repeatedly rock into that one leg over and over again, or they’re doing this like, quarter squat movement pattern, and then they’re also feeling that pressure as well. And so those are all big clues to me that baby is about to be born or they’re about to start pushing. And so you can use a cervical exam to see baby station, but I find paying attention to how you’re moving as a clue to where baby is within the pelvis tends to be more accurate for my unmedicated clients. But cervical exams are still a tool that’s available to you to kind of confirm things as well. And so when we see the intuitive movement pattern, we can just match that movement pattern to a pelvic level, and that’s how we can know where baby is within the pelvis.
And so is your pelvis too small? Not likely. If you’ve had a previous labor stall, that may have led to more interventions or even a Caesarean birth. It doesn’t mean that your pelvis is too small. There’s a lot that can contribute towards a labor stall. It could be related to the passenger. So your baby’s position, was your baby’s head aligned to the pelvic level? Because each pelvic level has a different shape and your baby’s head has a particular shape as well. And so if your baby’s head was not well aligned to the pelvic level they were trying to navigate, they may not fit through that space.
So going back to Roxanne’s analogy with your toddler trying to put a square peg through a square hole, they’re meant to fit together, but if it’s not well aligned, then the square peg is not going to go through that square hole.
So that’s similar to our baby. So if our baby was in a position that was not allowing them to fit through that pelvic level, it’s probably going to cause a labor stall. The next thing is going to be, how was your baby’s head positioned as well? Were they chin tucked? They have a flexed chin position, which is going to present smaller to the pelvic opening, and those bones are going to mold and fold much easier. Was their head tilted? Were they extended or Deflexed? So they were presenting much larger to the pelvis. Those are going to be things that may contribute towards a labor stall that don’t mean that your pelvis is too small or even that your baby is too big. This is something that’s known as relative CPD, which means baby is not too big, but they are presenting too large in addition to the passenger. It can be related to power.
So how strong were your contractions? Were you super tired? Were you starving? Were you dehydrated? Or were you starting to get sick? Was there someone in your space that was causing you to be stressed out? So those are all going to be things that are going to affect how strong our contractions can be. Think about labor being a marathon. We want to fuel and nourish ourselves during our labors. And so if you haven’t eaten in two days, if you’re barely drinking water, those are going to affect how strong your uterine contractions can be. If you’re super fatigued, that can also affect how strong your uterine contractions can be. And then if you do start getting sick or there’s kind of a decline in your health that can affect the uterine contractions as well.
And then if there was someone in your space that was stressing you out, how we feel during our labors can influence our uterine contractions as well. So oxytocin is our love hormone. It is what helps cause those uterine contractions. But oxytocin is not going to be released if we’re scared or fearful. Our body is going to release more stress hormones that is going to kind of inhibit the release of oxytocin. And so it’s really important that in the space we’re in, we feel safe and supported that we have as minimal tension as possible to really allow the most oxytocin to flow. And so if there’s someone in your space that’s stressing you out, just ask them to leave. Have somebody else in your room that’s kind of your bodyguard to kind of kick out people that are bringing in stress for you. And that might include just kind of going into a dark room with your partner and just being the two of you together. Like if you’re in a hospital, maybe just go into the bathroom, the two of you, and just kind of hug and just know that your partner is there to help support you and keep you safe. And then the last thing that can contribute towards that labor stall is that passage. So the path that baby is actually navigating through, are you moving in a way that’s helping to support opening the pelvis, and are we opening the correct pelvic level? And so if you have that intuitive movement pattern, just go by what you feel is right, what feels good for you, more intense doesn’t mean better. We want to kind of go to a point that we still feel like we can release and relax into our contractions that feel good for us.
And you’ll kind of know, like if you get into a position that just doesn’t feel right, get out of it. Just know that you know your labor best and you’re the one that’s the most connected to your labor experience. And so we want to move in a way that’s opening the pelvic level that our baby is currently navigating. Again, those intuitive movement patterns or a cervical exam to know baby station are going to be really helpful to know what type of movements to do.
So no, your pelvis is probably not too small. It’s unfair if anyone ever tells you that or makes you second guess that your pelvis is not adequate to give birth the way that you want. And hopefully you have a better idea on how to support your own birth preparation and birth after listening to this podcast.
Roxanne: So us as birth workers, one thing that we can do is educate ourselves more on labor stalls, labor positions that we can utilize to help prevent labor stalls or treat labor stalls if they occur. And one of the ways that we can do it is position changes. Knowing ways to put people in different positions to help baby adjust into a more optimal position. And that is what we do in our birthbergers course, is we break down pelvic biomechanics and labor stalls. And how we can address labor stalls to prevent potentially stalled labors that could lead to either C section or other interventions that maybe your client or patient weren’t wanting.
Gina: As a perinatal fitness trainer, particularly if you’re working with prenatal clients. We can incorporate movements within our prenatal programming to help our clients prepare for birth. Particularly movements like internal rotation or that posterior pelvic tilt, because those are two movement patterns that are sometimes harder to find during pregnancy. And the inability to find those type of movements can result in a labor stall, particularly those late labor stalls where somebody’s stuck at, like, 8. Baby is just not descending or rotating anymore. And so, as a fitness professional, we offer our Fitness Trainer course to help you understand what those movements are.
How does the pelvis open? And then how can we integrate movements within our prenatal programming to help prepare our clients for Birth? We obviously go a lot in depth to different lifting modifications for each trimester, like things to do for pelvic girdle pain. There’s a lot more in the course than just Birth preparation, but it is a huge component of our programming. And a big reason why our Fitness Trainer course really is different from other perinatal fitness courses out there is because we do include that Birth element within it.
Roxanne: So thank you for joining us today and listening to this episode. If you want more support throughout your pregnancy, join our prenatal fitness programs and childbirth education courses. If you need more support after birth, join our postpartum fitness programs and education courses.
If you’re a professional, we offer Birth worker and fitness training courses so you can learn from us while also earning CEUs. Explore all of our courses on our website@Mamastefit.com.
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