Therapy Roo Physical Therapy
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Contact
  • Resources
  • Blog

At Home With Your Pelvis

postpartum self care survival tips

11/13/2019

 
My last post was about the importance of self care and creating space postpartum to process your birth and prioritize your physical and emotional recovery. Maybe you want to add in more self care, but you don’t have time to think of ways to help yourself. So, let’s do it together!
  1. Identify your support network: friends, family, neighbors who can help. Who’s the best organizer in this group? Ask them to make a sign up spreadsheet for people to bring meals, help with groceries, or be there to watch your baby while you shower. The goal is to get assistance without needing to be the managing person coordinating or directing all of this. You can then focus on the important things that only you can do. 
  2. Set up your space: It sucks when you get positioned to feed your baby and realize your water bottle is across the room! Be your own fairy godmother and put a glass of water, lip balm, and some easily grabable snacks (nothing that needs two hands) next to feeding areas to help out future you. My amazing sister-in-law (with 3 kids to manage) suggested this lifesaver tip. 
  3. Say yes: You were an independent person before baby and maybe not so good at asking for help...Now people are saying “if you need anything, let me know” and your gut reaction is still to say no. Say YES. What’s one thing you really need from the store that they can bring over? Can they show up with lunch? Or coffee? If you’re worried about paying them back, that’s what Venmo is for. Are you going out today and need an extra hand? Have them come over first to help you pack up and help out in the car. 
  4. Don’t sweat the small stuff: If it’s not critical to you and the baby, try to let it go. Is your home a mess? Oh well. Did you forget to call your friend on their birthday? They’ll understand. If you can’t give yourself a break during this time, when can you? If it’s absolutely impossible for you to not worry about these things, write them down. Keep a running list that I hope you never look at. Send it to your organizing friend!
  5. Sanity Hour: Do you have the blessing of going through this period with a partner or is there family staying with you right now? Amazing. Pick out a 30 minute to 1 hour time slot per day that is sacred time for you. You must be on your own at that time. No calls, no questions, no baby. Take deep breaths, stretch your back and arms, meditate. Watch some TV, write in a journal, read a novel. You need this.

               What are some of the things that helped you with self care? Comment below!

​

your Identity Is more THan Mom

11/13/2019

 
I often get pushback when I say this, but I think you are just as important as your child. I know that little babe is helpless and needs constant care, but sometimes you still need to come first. As they say on airplanes, put on your own oxygen mask before helping those around you.This is often really difficult for women. Societal expectations raise us to put ourselves after others and we are taught to be caregivers. Any deviation from this can make many women feel guilty or selfish. This is amplified into your identity postpartum. Our society tells women that caring for yourself is selfish and being a good mom is about selflessness. This is dangerous rhetoric. You’re a woman with many interests, but now your thoughts and conversations mostly center around your baby’s growth and milestones. Your identity becomes Mom.
Although this is wonderful and your children add richness to your life, it’s important to keep your needs and recovery at the forefront. As an added bonus, you will do a better job caring for your children if you are healthy, rested, pain-free, and emotionally present.
Please take a moment to (without judgement) think through your recent days: did you treat yourself as a priority? Did you feel guilty taking a shower? Eating a sandwich? It’s natural biologically to tense and run over when your baby starts crying. I understand, but is someone watching out for you too? Have you caught your breath enough to think about how you’re feeling? Are you in a state of hyper-vigilance all the time? 
Sometimes I am working with a client on her scar and all of a sudden, she starts crying. The intensity or even trauma of birth can be overwhelming, but there’s rarely time to process it. You are immediately a mom, with a new life and new priorities. So, you may put any grief, fear, or anxiety you had about the birth in a lockbox. Seeing a pelvic floor PT is often the first time a woman starts processing these emotions, when the scar brings them bubbling up. 
It is also natural to feel some grief for the loss of the person you were. You feel different, you look different, you are different. Someone is constantly needing you and you no longer have time to yourself. Women often experience guilt about these thoughts, especially if you expected to feel only gratitude and all encompassing love. But having a baby is like throwing a bomb into your life. Even if it was an absolutely desired and sought after event, you are still picking up the pieces. Please be gentle and kind to yourself during the process. Prioritizing your physical and emotional recovery is an important, but often neglected, part of the postpartum experience.
Compassion and care for others requires self compassion and self care. As the great Ru Paul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?”
Amen.

AN Open letter to postpartum women

4/17/2019

 

Dear New Mom,
​

Like many women, you may have waited a full six weeks before seeing your OB after giving birth. You struggled and pushed and stayed up all hours, and maybe had major abdominal surgery (hi, c-section), and then a few days later you were waved out the door with an infant and no instruction manual. Six weeks of a whole new life: crying, rocking, pain, joy, struggle, love, and drama. Then, you get to your six week postpartum visit, sleep deprived and overwhelmed, and your OB says that you’re “healed” and “good to go” back to exercise, sex, and work. And you were probably thinking, “What?!?!”
I want you to know that no woman has ever told me they felt back to normal at six weeks postpartum. You are not alone. The six week visit can be traumatic because of the vast chasm between how you feel now and what you knew as normal before. You may look at your OB and wonder if they really recognize you, do they really see you?
To give your OB the benefit of the doubt, they likely mean you are progressing normally through this recovery process. Their time with you is so limited, they really only have the opportunity to check on healing of your uterus, any perineal tears or c-section scars, and talk to you about birth control. It is relatively rare the OB will check for prolapse or diatasis recti and they almost never assess your pelvic floor muscle awareness or strength. This brief visit and the recommendation to return to all activities can result in the unrealistic expectation that you should feel back to normal after 6 weeks.
This interaction may make you feel behind the curve or ashamed of your current body and how different it is. You may worry your OB is saying this is your “new normal”, and that this is all the recovery you can hope to achieve. This shame or worry may stop you from sharing how you really feel with others. You look around at other postpartum women, who seem to be happily coping and focused on their babies, and wonder, “Is this just me?” No, it’s not just you, and we need to talk about this together!
I want you to know that we’re here to help. Your body took nine months to prepare for this and will need time to recover. Fun fact: just the uterus shrinking back down to normal size takes about 11-12 weeks! There will be so many changes and you need knowledgeable, caring providers supporting you through this process.
In some other countries (bonjour, France!), this is standard care. Every postpartum woman gets referred to pelvic floor physical therapy after every birth. This makes sense! Your whole body changes during pregnancy and the delivery process can be very physically (and emotionally) traumatic. In the US, if someone tears their ACL, they often receive up to 6 months of rehab. Well, a lot more than your knee is affected during pregnancy and birth...
Postpartum women need support here in the United States AND we need to talk openly about our bodies and how we really feel.
Things are slowly changing in the US and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has revised their recommendations for the postpartum period, to offer earlier postpartum visits and extend care through 12 weeks. Until more of these changes take effect though, you will need to continue to self advocate and seek out support. You do not have to get used to incontinence, painful sex, feeling weak in your core, or pelvic pain. Please reach out to pelvic floor PTs, The Lotus Method, postpartum doulas, lactation consultants, and support groups to help you on this journey.

Best wishes,
Jessica Abele, PT, DPT, NCS
Therapy Roo Physical Therapy

    Archives

    May 2022
    January 2020
    November 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019

    Categories

    All
    Intercourse
    Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy
    Postpartum
    Pregnancy
    Scar Tissue
    Self Care
    Urinary Leakage

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Contact
  • Resources
  • Blog