A Pelvic Floor PT’s First Piece of Advice

‘Nobody has ever woken up in the morning and thought, “If I was weaker, this would be so much easier.’”

We sat down with pelvic floor therapist Mary Sadler to learn all about what the pelvic floor goes through during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. The most surprising part? Her biggest tip has nothing to do with your pelvic floor at all.

‘Pretty much if you ask me any question ever, my answer is going to be glutes. Like strong glutes are the source of a good life.’

‘When people think of the pelvic floor they think of kegels. Everyone thinks of the pelvic floor almost as like a bicep, like one muscle. It’s this mystery muscle between our legs that we don’t talk about. You’re just supposed to do your kegels in a dark closet and like not tell anybody. But the pelvic floor is a group of muscles that functions with your body like the whole body, especially your glutes. In pregnancy, for your pelvis to be stable and to decrease pain and leakage, it is actually the glutes that need to do a bunch of work.’

Intuitively, if your body is strong, your pelvic floor will have less work to do. If not, your pelvic floor muscles will pick up the slack.

‘So if your core is not working properly, if your glutes are not working properly, your pelvic floor actually gets overloaded and ends up becoming too tense, too angry, too overworking, and that often leads to pain, leakage, and negative labor outcomes.’

Ready to learn more? Listen to Mary’s episode of Pregnancy Has Entered the Chat today.