It’s interesting going through another season of transition, settling back into clinical work again, in a maternity setting. I thought I had left that opportunity behind, but now I am embraced into a warm environment working with Obstetric GP’s and Midwives – who only see pregnant and postnatal clients (and those wanting to become pregnant) in this clinic.
It’s a new setting with a brand new purpose built building, new people to meet and to work with and computer systems to learn. Bringing back much of what I thought I’d left behind is really interesting, as I come back into taking antenatal classes, seeing clients for exercises and physio related issues.
We are setting up systems that I was involved in implementing back over 15 years ago – where did the time go, but more importantly, where did all this knowledge go?
In a world where we have so much information, too much at times, it’s easy to go into overwhelm. But as I am still finding out – that we don’t always have the basics covered very well.
When will be the day that every woman knows how to do their pelvic floor muscle exercises correctly right from early in pregnancy or ideally even before hand? Will she be confident in doing them and know for sure that she is in fact doing her exercises correctly? Our midwives play an integral role and can help women connect to their pelvic floor, and learn to address any problems that they might have early.
What about doing pregnancy and postnatal abdominal bracing? This simple yet effective exercise is a basis for so much, including the return of core function after the birth, however so many women don’t yet know how to do this easily or well.
Learning this now is simpler, with the creation of the new booklet launched in the Managing the Motherload campaign by the Continence Foundation of Australia in June 2014. It is available in pdf version for download here.
Also of course, for helping you to know more about your pelvic floor and abdominal muscles before, during and after pregnancy, you can use our tune up booklet As Your Shape Changes, to fine tune and monitor your technique and check you are on the right road to get back into the shape after the birth of your baby.