It didn’t take long before I understood that the pelvic floor had taken a massive toll from the birth of my second baby. I knew my body so much better now and a bit more about what to expect (and what not to) after giving birth. 

But I also knew that even if the prolapse felt very low initially after the birth it didn’t necessarily mean it was a long term worsening. So I stayed positive. I didn’t want to ruin the good emotional feelings from the birth experience and I really wanted to just enjoy the moment. I tried to put any thoughts about my pelvic floor to one side for the time being, there would be time later to deal with my physical side of things..

Of course it wasn’t entirely easy to ignore my body, especially because that cough I suffered before labour kept lingering. And of course kept affecting the pelvic floor and my stitches.. Soon enough I ended up on antibiotics because of a diagnosed chest infection. At least that meant I could finally start to recover from that bit.

Midwife J came to do my Day 3 checkup at home. She straight away identified that my cervix was positioned too low to be considered normal at this point and referred me to women’s health physiotherapy. And that would be to the same physio I had seen lots both before and after my previous baby. 

However, there is really not enough of these type of professionals out there, and I assume there are not enough fundings for this area, women postpartum are basically not very much prioritised. This means that those few that work with women’s health get very, stretched. To give you an idea: I had my baby end of May, the referral to physio was sent through in the very early days of June. I got my physio appointment the 22nd of October…

Lucky for me that this was my second baby and I had done so much pelvic floor physiotherapy in the past so I kind of knew a lot of what I needed to do. Plus I had the cube to go back to eventually. But for a first time mother who may have no idea at all, and might be experiencing prolapse issues or other pelvic floor problems – imaging having to wait for that long to get any kind of help!!!? 

In my next post I will tell you what my GP said at my 6-week postpartum checkup.