Postpartum Care

This depends.

Internal pelvic floor muscle assessment can usually begin 6 weeks after delivery, but there is much more that can be done. For example, although great care is taken to protect incisions, assessment and manual therapy to assist healing after c-section, episiotomies and tears can be performed safely by a skilled provider before 6-weeks. Some women with lower extremity swelling and clogged milk ducts have benefitted from treatment within just a couple of weeks of birth. Each person’s needs are different. Please set up a 15-minute consultation if you have questions.

A postpartum visit at 6 weeks often includes, but is not limited to assessment of posture and breath, biomechanics and core stability, diastasis recti, pelvic floor muscle strength and coordination, pelvic organ prolapse, and pain generators if there are any.

Education, manual therapy, exercise, and other interventions depend upon evaluation findings and PT assessment.

When you come in for a postpartum assessment I assess for things like:

• posture and breathing

• diastasis recti

• pelvic floor muscle function

• pelvic organ prolapse

• c-section, episiotomy scars or tears

Based upon our findings we might employ:

• Manual therapy

• Dry needling

• Neuromuscular reeducation

• Therapeutic exercise and functional movement strategies

• Cold laser (LTU-904) to assist with incisional healing

• Home supportive equipment and more

No. Consent is required prior to any internal assessment (vaginal or rectal).

The benefits of an internal assessment are the ability to palpate (touch) internal structures of the pelvic bowl (for example, assess tender points on muscle, or bony landmarks such as the coccyx (tailbone) that could be contributing to symptoms. Many pelvic floor structures can still be palpated externally and visual assessments provide important information as well.

I want the patient to honor their comfort level. Some patients want to ‘get to the bottom’ of their symptoms and are open to an internal assessment on day 1 of evaluation, while others need time to feel comfortable, or never want an internal assessment; regardless of your preference, I want you to feel comfortable and understand the treatment rationale for any intervention in my office. Your mental and physical comfort are paramount to make sure we create a safe space for patient care.

Absolutely!

We can modify treatment to meet your needs. I have treated mother’s while breastfeeding, practiced biomechanics with lifting baby, and more.

Some women prefer to have the hour just to themselves.

You can also invite a caregiver to come to PT treatment sessions with you.

Of course there are considerations that must be taken into account such as noise levels in the clinic (a baby with cholic may not be the best fit), and we may be able to get more done in a treatment session when mothers are able to focus solely on themselves, but bringing your baby to treatment IS an option and something we can try!