Pelvic Floor Exercises: A Comprehensive Guide with 6 Facts for Pregnancy and Recovery

Pelvic floor exercises are one of the most important and most overlooked parts of staying healthy during pregnancy and recovering well after delivery. While everyone focuses on the growing belly, it’s the muscles you can’t see that often take the biggest hit. Here’s what you need to know about your pelvic floor and why it matters.

It’s true that pregnancy and childbirth can bring about some major physical changes. The focus is often on external ones (a growing belly). But one of the biggest pregnancy and childbirth changes impacts an area that’s impossible to see from the outside: the pelvic floor. I won’t lie to you, pregnancy and childbirth can definitely do a number on this area. For some people, a little thing called pelvic floor exercises may be able to help.

Your Pelvic Floor Anatomy

I can’t blame you if you’re like, “Excuse me, the anatomy of my what, now?” In general, people don’t talk about pelvic floors often, even in pregnancy and childbirth conversations.

The pelvic floor is essentially a group of muscles integrated together to create a support structure for the intra-abdominal organs. These muscles work like a hammock to brace organs such as the uterus, bladder, and rectum. In doing so, the pelvic floor promotes healthy bowel and bladder control along with comfort during things like penetrative sex. If something goes wrong with your pelvic floor, it can mess with your ability to go to the bathroom normally, with your sex life, and with your general function in that region.

Pregnancy and Your Pelvic Floor

Being pregnant can loosen up the muscles and connective tissues such as ligaments that need to work well for good pelvic floor function. This loosening effect is thanks to hormones that increase when you have a baby on the way, like progesterone, estrogen, and one literally called Relaxin. The point of this loosening is to eventually allow a baby to pass through the birth canal more easily.

Then there’s that growing belly part. As your uterus expands and you gain weight, more pressure bears down on your pelvic floor, which can contribute to a loss of support.

Childbirth and Your Pelvic Floor

As you’ve probably surmised, birthing a baby vaginally can definitely impact your pelvic floor and cause postpartum issues like pain during sex, urinary or fecal retention, and urinary or fecal incontinence. You might be wondering about how having a cesarean would influence your odds of winding up with pelvic floor dysfunction. Having a C-section does appear to be linked with a significantly lower risk of pelvic floor disorders, but it doesn’t mitigate this risk entirely because you still have all of the factors from the pregnancy itself. A C-section is still a major abdominal surgery that comes with its own intense healing process even if it doesn’t harm your pelvic floor in any big way.

For more detail on pelvic floor disorders and treatment options, the Mayo Clinic has a comprehensive overview.

How to Do Pelvic Floor Exercises: Finding the Right Muscles

To identify your pelvic floor muscles, stop urination in midstream. You should ONLY use this method for learning purposes. It is not advised to start and stop your urine regularly.

Pregnancy and postpartum fitness isn’t one-size-fits-all, and your pelvic floor is a big part of that picture. If you want coaching that actually accounts for what your body is going through, prenatal and postpartum training is exactly what I specialize in — in studio or online. As always, consult your doctor before starting any exercise plan.

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