My fascination with the major themes in our lives leaves me intrigued with this particular time in life. The challenges for a woman during her pre and post-natal time are felt on every level of her life – emotional, relational, and physical. My training and years of experience in Physiotherapy leave me uniquely skilled at helping prepare my patients for the coming demands of becoming pregnant, carrying a child, delivering a child and recovering from that delivery. My own process with birthing two healthy babies allows me on the ground knowledge and understanding of the experience of parenting. Wherever you are along the continuum of the fertility journey I can offer specific advice, support and training to help navigate this time of change and growth in your body.
My clients have benefited from my services in the following ways:
- Ability to have pain-free intercourse, whether this problem is relatively new for them or has been there for decades. Pain with sex represents a significant barrier to sex for intimacy and self expression. Intercourse supports the good, old-fashioned method of getting pregnant (fertilization) via delivery of sperm (seed) to the ovum (egg) through vaginal penetration. Intercourse is usually the simplest, least expensive method of getting pregnant but not all women are able to engage in this due to pain. I can help resolve this barrier to fertility and intimacy.
- Preparation of the pelvic floor muscles and connective tissue for the planned vaginal delivery via education and perineal massage. I will teach you and your partner to do perineal massage for the period of time after 37 weeks gestation, helping the prepare the tissues to stretch and elongate to a length they have never previously been. This creates the best case scenario in a situation that involves many unknowns.
- Resolution of pelvic, low-back, or hip pain that predated or coincided with pregnancy.
- Resolution of incontinence that pre-dated, coincided or developed after pregnancy. This can be incontinence of a urinary (losing pee) or fecal (losing poo) nature.
- Resolution and management of pelvic organ prolapse.
- Support while returning to sport/activity/work after delivery.
- Recovery from Diastasis Recti Abdominus, a condition wherein the abdominal wall tissues are stretched creating a separation of the right and left sides of the abdominal wall. My services include a detailed whole body assessment to determine the barriers to optimal abdominal wall function, and specific abdominal wall assessment to determine if a DRA is present, and if it is likely to be correctable with conventional rehabilitation (protection, support and training via exercise). If is is not correctable via rehabilitation then a surgical consult will be advised.