What is your pelvic floor?

The pelvic floor is made up of muscles which support the bladder, bowel, and uterus.

Research shows that one in three women experience urinary incontinence in the first year after having a baby, and up to three-quarters of these women continue to experience this in the following 12 years after giving birth. A further one in 10 women experience faecal incontinence, and another one in 12 will have a pelvic organ prolapse.

 

What is a perineal tear?

Your perineum is the area between your vaginal opening and anus.

Many women experience tears during childbirth as the baby stretches the vagina and perineum.

Find your pelvic floor muscles

Practicing pelvic floor exercises can help with the healing process following a perineal tear. Check out our WEPP pelvic floor exercise video for more information.

 

 

Wellbeing and Exercise in Pregnancy Programme (WEPP)

WEPP offers video and audio resource that you can access online, at home, for free.

WEPP was created by pelvic health physiotherapists to provide easy access to safe and effective exercise videos and useful resources during and after pregnancy.

Watch our Spotlight On videos covering pelvic floor myths, pelvic floor exercises, help with pelvic girdle pain, stress incontinence in pregnancy, and many other topics.

 

• Pelvic girdle pain
• Pelvic girdle pain exercise class
• Managing pelvic girdle pain day to day

Perinatal Pelvic Health (PPH) services are being redesigned nationally to improve the pelvic health of women and people who birth.

Sussex is at the forefront of development and is working hard to improve the prevention, identification, and treatment of mild to moderate pelvic health problems during pregnancy and following birth. We aim to reduce the number of people living with pelvic health issues.

Services users, midwives, and physiotherapists have collaborated to co-produce information, exercise videos, educational material, and multidisciplinary perineal tears clinics to support improved pelvic health for our Sussex population.

The PPH team’s focus has been on resources specifically for pelvic health issues, both before and after birth, to improve your understanding of what can happen to your body, what is considered “normal”, and how to get help if needed.

If you’d like to read more about pelvic health clinics across the country, please follow the link below to visit the NHS website:

• Pelvic Health Clinics