The Pelvic Floor: Your Body's Power Center and Key to Postpartum Recovery
The pelvic floor is an impressive network of muscles in your lower pelvis. It acts as your body's power centre and plays a key role in postpartum recovery. Yet for all its importance during pregnancy, birth and recovery, many women know very little about this crucial muscle group.
The pelvic floor comes up constantly around pregnancy, birth and recovery - and yet few people know what it actually is. So let's take a closer look. The pelvic floor is a genuinely impressive network of muscles in the lower pelvis. It evolved along with walking upright to, quite literally, stop our organs from falling out. It controls the sphincters of the bladder and bowel, and it plays its part in a pleasurable sex life.
The structure and function of the pelvic floor
Your pelvic floor is made up of three layers of muscle that constantly work with each other and with other muscle groups. It has three main jobs: to tense, to relax and to hold. During pregnancy in particular, your pelvic floor carries not only your own increasing body weight but the weight of your baby and your womb - and then opens fully for birth. It's remarkable how clever the body is: the pelvic floor spends nine months in holding mode, then manages to open completely within hours. It isn't quite that simple, though. It takes hormonal softening and conscious awareness. That's why mindful breathing exercises for tensing and relaxing are well worth doing during pregnancy.
The pelvic floor during pregnancy and birth
Some pregnant women feel their pelvic floor clearly, especially when it's under more pressure from several pregnancies or larger babies. At that point pelvic floor training becomes essential at the latest. And if you have a caesarean, training the pelvic floor after birth matters for the same reason. During labour, the contractions and the slow descent of the baby's head until it reaches the pelvic floor put it under heavy pressure. Bit by bit it stretches, until it opens completely and lets your baby's head - with an average circumference of 33-36 cm - glide out.
Postpartum strain on the pelvic floor - and rest
You'll feel this strain most when you first stand up after birth and in the early postpartum weeks. Your posture gives the overload away: your upright walk turns, for a while, into a stooped, fairly hunched one. What your pelvic floor needs now is strict rest. You'll manage that best by:
- Keeping to your postpartum rest and lying down a lot
- Passing water regularly - ideally every 2-3 hours
- Breastfeeding lying down
- Having easily digestible food prepared for you to keep your stools soft
- Putting a toilet stool under your feet when you need to poop
- Supporting your womb's recovery - for example with abdominal massage and lying on your front often
- Doing first activation exercises lying down - depending on any birth injury, ideally wait at least a week before you start
- Avoiding heavy lifting - older siblings, for instance
- Wearing a support band for your belly or special support underwear if you feel strong pressure
- Always getting up and lying down via your side - avoid sitting straight up
Some initial incontinence or dribbling is perfectly normal, but it should keep improving over time.
Pelvic floor awareness and recovery
About a week after birth, it's important to start the first awareness exercises for your pelvic floor muscles. If you've had more serious birth injuries, feel free to wait a little longer. Learning to feel your pelvic floor again is the foundation for the rest of your recovery.
We've put together a few concrete exercises. They take only a few minutes a day and slot neatly into life as a new mum. Once your postpartum weeks are behind you, we wholeheartedly recommend a postnatal recovery course - in Germany these are covered by statutory health insurance. It's time well invested in you and your wonderful body.
Pelvic floor exercises for recovery
A strong, stable pelvic floor is essential - and it takes patience. Look after it and give it time. It's worth it.
1. Activating your pelvic floor - squeeze & lift
This vivid, hands-on cue from the wonderful Berliner Glücksmamas can help you find your pelvic floor. It's all about tensing and then lifting - a squeeze & lift.
Here's a practical, equally vivid way to picture the squeeze:
1 - Close your anal sphincter - as if you were holding in a fart.
2 - Tighten your vagina - as if you were holding a tampon in place.
3 - Close your urethra - as if you were stopping your stream of urine.
2. And now the lift
Imagine your bladder, womb and rectum resting inside a soap bubble that you gently let rise up towards your belly.
All the surrounding muscles - your glutes, thighs and outer abdominals - can stay relaxed.
Does tuning in feel like a challenge? Take your time. Time for you, for how your body feels, for your femininity. Your pelvic floor does far more than you think.
Toilet stool: how it supports your pelvic floor after birth
After birth the pelvic floor is under real strain and needs time to recover. A toilet stool can be a huge help at this stage, because it makes emptying your bowels easier and minimises pressure on the pelvic floor. The squatting position optimises the natural angle of the rectum, so less pushing is needed – a real relief for new mothers who want to go easy on their pelvic floor.
Especially in the first weeks after birth, when the pelvic floor is still weak and slowly recovering, a toilet stool can help you avoid problems like constipation or unnecessary pressure on the muscles. Gently supporting the bowel makes for a more relaxed, more natural movement - which in turn can aid healing.
