The abundance of women I have talked to over the years has been such a joy. One thing that is so evident in the 40 plus year old women whose kids are in their early teens or completely out of the house. The stories I hear from these moms….
These moms have often been to regular physical therapy and chiropractors before. Always had some right sided low back pain, on and off sciatica or a pain in their hip that comes and goes. Some have had knee pain and general back discomfort. They all have tried different things but this is now just their standard. They wake up achy and have lower energy because of the drags of their ailments. They become the mom at the gym that can’t take certain classes because of their knee or other issue. They are so bummed out because they can literally see themselves turning into their mom, sitting around a table with all her friends talking about their aging bodies.
Usually these moms find us from a mom friend who has come to us or by the grace of the universe or god, whichever you prefer. Sometimes they don’t even have a social circle anymore because they spent the last 15 years doing everything for their kids and now their confidence is shot and they regret not caring for themselves. I share this and hope that people know this is SO COMMON. You are absolutely not alone. These are the stories I hear over and over and over again.
This bugs me so much. These moms deserve the care that is available today. They deserve to heal every single aspect of their body that was affected from having kids. These aches and pains in women are the reason women have more joint replacements than men.
I want to shed light on the fact that it is never ever too late. Is it easier before menopause and can we prevent many of these pains by not letting the body compensate after kids. Yes absolutely. But the reality is that this care wasn’t available as a preventative tool to restore your body after kids. Some of these women will ask me, why they never got this care.. Or some will tell me that they did see a pelvic PT but it is nothing like what we are doing. The reason being, is that we get to train and treat your whole entire body. We get to focus on the top of the core which is the diaphragm and get that strong again, get your ribcage healed and back to it most effective position, we get to heal all the layers of your pelvic floor, heal your pelvis, heal your hips, heal everything that has developed compensation patterns which can include your knees, shoulders, neck ect… all because the core was never healed after babies.
The funny thing about these stories and I shouldn’t say funny, is that most of these moms have incontinence. Like they leak pee, even if it’s just a tiny bit, when they cough, laugh or sneeze. Those symptoms are just continued signs that the core is not working effectively.
Here’s the thing. These moms, they did not get the chance to prepare for birth or heal their cores after birth. Pelvic floor therapy just wasn’t a thing. No one was checking them, helping them work on their scar tissue and helping them rebuild their muscles. Even today, many pelvic floor PTs have different training and may do 1 assessment postpartum and then start you on exercises without
Why have things like standard PT and chiro not fixed their hips, back and knees permanently? It’s because these women still have issues in their core, maybe old c-section scars. Maybe scar and adhesions in their pelvic floor that haven’t healed and have limited the muscle from being able to work and be the force absorber that it was designed to do. These moms may have also had heavier organs after birth, which is so common in our postpartum moms even though they might not have problems yet, they are just coming for prevention (ps. This is another reason you have to choose to invest in yourself. Unless you have limiting aches, pains or issues, insurance isn’t going to cover. AND if they do, they will only cover the treatment of that knee pain ect. Not the whole reason why the knee pain occurred in the first place, hence why the issue came back.)
Back to the organ thing. When our bodies have babies, our organs can sometimes “sag” in our bodies. I think this is so much more common than ever diagnosed because we see it in about 90% of our clients postpartum. The only clients we don’t see it in are the clients who came to us during pregnancy. The reason for this is we’ve got to train, balance and manually teach their muscles new positions they need to get to, so then during labor they don’t spend hours pushing their organs down and out, through a tight wall. The wall being their pelvic floor. This work allows the wall to be flexible and dynamic.
Okay I digress, back to the organs, this can be labeled with a diagnosis called pelvic organ prolapse. People with this can have things like incontinence, pain in their low back and hips and lower belly, feel pelvic pressure or like something is in their vagina, constipation and more. A key thing postpartum is we need to heal the pelvic floor and whole core, so the organs can float back up to their places. Postpartum our bodies are recoiling and tightening to give some stability to our bones that just spent 9-10 months being separated. So it is really common that although you feel like you need to do kegels all day because things may feel loose, most of the time the muscles, core and pelvic floor need to be healed to make space for the organs not to get squeezed out of the body as the body tightens back down.
I hope this is clear. I highly recommend every single woman come meet with one of our pelvic expert physical therapists (trust me when I say not all pelvic PTs are created equal). Come and chat with our experts so we can go through exactly what your body has been through, where it is at and what needs to happen for you to live the healthiest life possible.
We can’t wait to meet you. We can’t wait to bring back your energy. We can’t wait to bring back your time in and out of all your appointments just to stay status quo without real change. We can’t wait to help you prevent bladder surgery, bladder meds, and joint replacements and injections later in life.
We want you to be the woman at the gym bragging about how much weight you lifted or that pickleball match you won. We want you to be the woman sitting around the table with her friends that shares the secret to why you feel so darn good. Reach out today.
If you’re not ready to commit to yourself and health yet but you want more information. You can purchase Dr. Allison’s book:
RESTORE YOUR BODY AFTER KIDS: THE SECRET TO AVOID PEEING YOUR PANTS AND ACHY JOINTS AS YOU AGE.
