Postpartum Body Questions That May Not Be Addressed In Your 6 Week Visit

The standard of postpartum care in the United States is a single post-birth visit that occurs 6-8 weeks after your baby is born. This visit is usually brief, and focused primarily on assessing vaginal or C section healing at a basic level in order to give broader clearance for return to sex and exercise. Though it can vary greatly by individual practitioner, there are often many questions left unanswered after this visit:

• Do I have abdominal separation (diastasis rectus abdominis)? If so, what do I do about it?

• Do I have pelvic organ prolapse? If so, what do I do about it?

• Is my pelvic floor functioning well enough to keep me from leaking urine? If not, how do I retrain it to stop leaking?

• I’m cleared to return to sex, but how does perineal scarring and/or reduced estrogen effect how comfortable this feels for me?

• I’m cleared to return to exercise, but how do I do this safely in a way that feels right for my current body?

These are just examples of questions I hear all the time as a pelvic floor physical therapist who works with prenatal and postpartum populations. It’s one of the reasons I wish that physical therapy consultation was an automatic part of postpartum care. All of these questions can be answered by a pelvic floor physical therapist, and we’re often the best practitioners to help birthing people navigate the physical postpartum process.

So if you have some of these questions about your own body, I’m here to help answer them. We all have different challenges postpartum, but nobody should have to navigate them alone!