What can physical therapy do for you during pregnancy?

You don't have to have symptoms to seek physical therapy care while pregnant. We’re here to give you the guidance you need to address or prevent any of these issues while optimizing your movement, strength, and activity during pregnancy. Pregnancy is often a confusing time for most with a lot of conflicting information floating around the internet and a lot of unsolicited advice from anyone and everyone (right?!). It is our goal to empower you with information and a plan to optimize your pregnancy journey.

We help you have the healthiest pregnancy possible so you can have a more informed childbirth and more preparation for your postpartum healing. We will guide you in your daily activity, workouts, home exercise program, aches and pains, as well as help you prepare for labor/delivery and 4th trimester.

Common issues

Tailbone pain
Low back pain
Hip pain
Pubic symphysis pain
Round ligament pain
Sacroiliac (SI joint) pain
Sciatica
Numbness/tingling in the legs or feet
Urinary incontinence
Urinary frequency or urgency
Pain or discomfort with sex

Birth Prep!

Preparing for birth can feel overwhelming. There’s so much going on with your growing body, your baby, the big event itself and everything on the horizon after birth. That’s where we come in. We are here to help you prepare for the birth you want and optimize your postpartum healing so you can focus on what matters most. We help prepare for every type: medicated and unmedicated vaginal, Cesarean, and home births. We also help you prepare for the unexpected so you have the tools and confidence you need going into birth. It’s our role to:

Minimize birth injury
Improve your pushing efficiency with vaginal birth
Optimize postpartum healing
Provide you with a return-to-activity plan for postpartum
Increase your confidence with birth and your 4th trimester

In your sessions we will teach you how to perform perineal stretching, how to push for vaginal births, breathe and move through labor, give you exercises to maintain core and pelvic floor strength and help your body adjust as you progress through your pregnancy, coordinate your core and pelvic floor to optimize your postpartum healing, and provide you with a return-to-activity plan for your early 4th trimester.

If you are pregnant and aren’t sure if this is for you, we recommend scheduling a phone consultation with one of our physical therapists to learn more <3

Frequently Asked Questions

Pregnancy & Postpartum Pelvic Floor Treatments

Is physical therapy safe during pregnancy?

Absolutely. We are doctors of physical therapy and our top priority is your and your baby’s health and safety. We are informed, educated, and conservative in our care. What we do not only makes pregnancy more comfortable, but also optimizes your delivery and postpartum healing.

When should I start pelvic floor physical therapy while pregnant?

You can start physical therapy as early as 12 weeks gestation. We test and analyze your movement, strength, nerves, mobility, core, and coordination to identify and set your baseline and get you started on a movement routine early on so you can prevent common issues including symphysis pubis dysfunction (aka lightning crotch), low back pain, tailbone pain, sciatica, pain with sex, etc. It is our aim to help you move through pregnancy feeling strong and confident. Once you start to approach your 3rd trimester, we more specifically help you prepare for the big event! We help you prepare regardless of the type of birth you will have whether that’s by helping you learn to push if you are having a vaginal birth, or how to have a bowel movement in the hospital if you are having a C-section, we’re here to help you with it all.

Does physical therapy help to prevent tearing?

It does! Not only do we mobilize, desensitize, and stretch the muscles that are most commonly torn during childbirth, but we also take time to show you how to stretch those muscles yourself (and sometimes with the help of a partner!) to make sure they are as mobile as possible going into your birth. This helps prevent grade 3 and grade 4 tears and the complications that can come from those.

Does physical therapy prevent diastasis recti?

Nope! 100% of people who are pregnant have diastasis recti by 35 weeks gestation, it’s a totally normal and healthy process of pregnancy. What we *can* do is help you maintain your core strength, control, and coordination so you can have a faster delivery and faster postpartum recovery.

Diastasis recti is when the rectus abdominis muscles (our “6 pack”) separate down the middle to make room for a growing baby. There is another muscle, called the transverse abdominis, that supports the rectus abdominis muscles. The challenge is that the transverse abdominis is the muscle that gets the most lengthened during pregnancy, making it more difficult to use to support our movement when we need it. What we do in physical therapy is re-educate this muscle to work for you and give the rectus abdominis (and pelvic floor) some support, optimizing your core strength and postpartum healing journey.

How do I know if I need physical therapy postpartum?

If you were pregnant and gave birth (c-section or vaginally), you need a physical therapy assessment. Most are surprised to learn that most of the changes to the pelvic floor occur during *pregnancy* and not during childbirth. So, regardless of delivery method, if you were pregnant, you experienced significant change to your abdominal muscles, pelvic floor, and supporting stabilizing muscles due to the necessary anatomical changes that have to occur during pregnancy to accommodate a growing baby. In physical therapy, we assess how your body compensated for those changes, and we help it re-learn how to use those muscles so they can better support you and heal faster so you can get back to doing everything you love and feel good doing it.

When can I start pelvic floor physical therapy after giving birth?

We treat women as early as 3 weeks postpartum, but don’t perform internal assessments until 6 weeks. During the first 2 weeks postpartum it is important to rest and recover, however starting in the 3rd week you can start to move around a little bit. It helps to have an assessment and have an exercise program that is tailored to your individual needs postpartum, because every birth is different! If you want to get back to running, HIIT, cross-fit, barre, yoga, volleyball etc, or even just sitting without back pain or sneezing without leaking, you need some exercises that are specific to those activities to prepare your body for them. The earlier you start, the sooner you can get back to doing what you love.

What happens if I don’t go to physical therapy?

Physical therapy for those who are postpartum is so important because, not only has your body changed in almost every way, but the demands on the body have changed as well. You now have a tiny human who relies on you for everything! You’re feeding them, carrying them, putting them in the crib or on the floor, picking them up from the crib or off the floor, all while operating on minimal sleep. The new demands on your body, all without adequate core strength and endurance, can take a toll. We teach you how to place and pick up your baby with minimal stress through the low back, how to carry them, and how to “undo” the physiological effects of life with a baby to improve posture, pain/discomfort, strength, endurance, and overall function.

If you don’t go to physical therapy, you will still heal and improve because the body is smart and amazing and will do its best to support you! Especially as your hormones return to normal, you will start to feel more normal as well. However, clinically what we see is women who don’t go to physical therapy early, may end up having symptoms a year or two postpartum such as pain with sex, constipation/straining for bowel movements, urinary leakage or frequency, etc. These symptoms usually get worse without treatment. Alternatively, we see women who may not have many symptoms postpartum, but as they approach menopause their bodies go through a similar transition as far as hormones are concerned. With less estrogen, the vaginal tissue has less blood flow and support; therefore, as the tissue thins, the muscles start to atrophy and issues that have been there all along become exposed. That’s why so many women have symptoms related to pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence, and pelvic pain during menopause.

Our goal in seeing you early is to prevent these symptoms from ever showing up. We give you tools to use to support your pelvic floor throughout your lifespan and maintain your strength, coordination, and overall health!