Push Prep Crash Course: Day 1
What is the Pelvic Floor and its Job During Pregnancy?
Learn the three main functions of your pelvic floor, how it’s affected by pregnancy and delivery, and why you should care!
The 3 Main Functions of the Pelvic Floor
Before we can understand how to prevent tearing and trauma to the pelvic floor, we need to understand what the pelvic floor does and what it looks like.
The pelvic floor muscles sit like a basket or hammock at the bottom of the pelvis, and because they sit this way, one of the major jobs of the pelvic floor is SUPPORT.
It’s literally the floor of your core. It holds up your pelvic organs and your body weight, supports you against gravity, and never really gets a rest.
During pregnancy, the muscles have to work SO much harder because the load is also growing and getting heavier as the baby grows.
Add on a placenta, increased body weight, increased fluid, increased blood volume, and change in center of gravity, and that’s a BIG ask for those muscles over a period of 9 months.
Here are the two other main functions of the pelvic floor:
- Continence - The muscles help to hold in urine, gas, and stool, and then release when it’s time to go to the bathroom. A lot of women experience leaking during and after pregnancy because of pelvic floor weakness and dysfunction due to the increased load it has to carry during pregnancy.
- Sex - The muscles attach to the sides of the clitoris which helps aid in orgasm and must be able to relax, release, and open to allow penetration.
Who knew how many jobs those muscles have?!? Not to mention how hard they have to work during pregnancy!!
