Dr. Manali explains importance of flexible Pelvic muscles during Labor and post-childbirth and how to achieve it with yoga
Pelvic floor. It is very important to have a flexible and strong pelvic floor. It goes a long way to help a woman during her labor, especially in the second phase of the labor, when the baby’s born. If the woman has a flexible pelvic floor, the labor duration will be short and it’ll be much easier for the woman to cope up with the pain.
The main muscles, which you need to know on your pelvic floor are the pubococcygeus muscle, which starts from here and goes up till here. The puborectalis muscle, which starts from your pubis and ends at your rectum, and the iliococcygeus muscle, it starts from the isle bones and goes to the axis bone. It is very important that all these muscles are flexible.
Many of you would be doing kegel exercises or would have heard about kegel exercises, but do you know that most of the time the Kegel exercises are not done in the right way? Sometimes it’s difficult to understand how to engage your pelvic floor muscles. You can see your biceps and you can exercise your bicep, but with the pelvic floor, it is different because you cannot see them.
So it’s very important you will learn the right way of recruiting and engaging the muscles. The best way to do this is to consult a women’s health physiotherapist, who would guide you, how to engage your muscles, and how to work with your pelvic floor. This would go a long way to help during your labor, as well as after your delivery.
