CYBEX Hot Mom Walk Podcast

CYBEX Hot Mom Walk Episode #22: The Power of the Pelvic Floor with Theresa Hudson

• CYBEX • Season 2 • Episode 22

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It's time for one final dose of wisdom from CYBEX Mama Mentor, Theresa Hudson (@eastcoastivfmom).

Theresa is joined in her final episode by Maria Radelich, a pelvic floor “guru” and physiotherapist from Pelvico Health. In this episode, the two discuss how the practice helped Theresa in her own pregnancy and postpartum journey, and why it's so important for all mamas to explore.

Show notes:
https://www.instagram.com/cybex_usa
https://www.instagram.com/eastcoastivfmom
https://www.instagram.com/pelvicohealth/

Hello and welcome to the Cybex Hot Mom Walk podcast. Cybex started this series as a recent study found that 80 % of women at three months postpartum say they feel more alone than ever. Designed to help mitigate feeling isolated, the Cybex Hot Mom Walk podcast series aims to help moms across North America cope with the feeling of isolation and the huge identity shift that comes with parenthood. Hello, this is Teresa again. And today I am interviewing and chatting with a local

guru, think most women, honestly, in HRM, which is the Halifax regional area, would say Maria, who is a pelvic floor physiotherapist. And to start off, I thought maybe you could tell us about yourself, your education, and what you do. Cool. Well, thank you for the nice intro.

So yeah, I'm a pelvic floor physiotherapist, so I went to school to be a physiotherapist. Accidentally kind of ended up in the pelvic health space, so I totally thought I wanted to work in the sports world kind of fully, and then you kind of realize what the schedules look like for that. And then in my last year, there was just an opportunity for a clinical rotation that you got to do like a pelvic health or like an advanced practice. And there's one that honestly, I won't lie, just ended up kind of working out for me being like in that area.

and it was four days a week, which was really nice while you're studying. So I took it because I was like, whatever, I can be open -minded. And sure enough, I ended up loving it. I ended up working with lot of athletes or moms that were getting back into fitness or sport or exercise. So I kind of fell in love with it. I actually stayed open -minded and kind of did it ever since. And then, so since then, have been working fully in the pelvic health area or space and then have recently opened

couple of practices to kind of blossom it a little bit further. And that's kind of where we are today.

which is amazing. So I personally saw you and I saw you multiple times for multiple reasons. So in the very beginning I saw you because I had years of IVF, years of people being in that space, which caused me to actually pee while running, which I know people are probably like, my gosh, I do that too. Well, I'm hoping people say they do that too. Or like, you you're jumping on trampoline and they're oops. So I was a little concerned about that and I came to see you, which was awesome. But what are

things so like that was kind of my trigger moment when I was peeing when I was running. What are some things that like women should look out for with their Pelflar Health? Totally so yeah it's kind of funny like we see people at any kind of stage we even see people like you said kind of prenatally we'll see them postnatal but we also can see you if you haven't even had children or aren't even considering children so there's lots of different phases of life that we'll see people and so some of the big things like you said that we want to look out for is just leaking

So, know, specifically a lot of moms or people or anyone will start to see it with impact or activity. So, like you said, with running or soccer or...

you know, sport, is kind of what I found really interesting. But some of the other things that are kind of not so obvious that sometimes people don't realize might be a time to go see a pelvic floor physio or kind of look into that are things like unresolving hip and back pain. Those are ones that we see like really frequently that end up kind of having a pelvic floor issue. So, you you go to your traditional, you go to your regular physio and, know, it's just like not really resolving or something's not quite right. Sometimes we'll see things like that. People who have a really significant history of like constipation,

or trouble like holding back gas. those ones are ones we'll see pretty frequently. We'll also see like really just any pain conditions. So we'll see people who have like really nasty periods. So, you know, even like endometriosis, those types of things. So really anything I kind of joke that is like painful or doesn't seem quite right between your nipples and knees is kind of the stuff for zone. That's your zone. Yeah, no, I like that. like that.

Hins it down, no one to look for. But no, that's true. I didn't even think of like, just like your, like your GI system and everything too. But of course all of it's connected. So yeah, totally makes sense. Okay, and I, so I saw you of course pre being pregnant and then I saw you prenatally while I was pregnant and my partner came with me and we came for a birthing session, which you prepped us for both cesarean section as well as.

vaginal delivery because I honestly didn't know what was going to happen. I was one of those weird cases with lots of stuff going on as I like to be. Everything that could happen can happen. and it was super enlightening so my partner was like that was the coolest thing ever. I learned so many things that he was

I'm not gonna lie, a little weirded out. He's like, hmm, okay, this is interesting. That was not what I was expecting. But, I thought it was so helpful when I actually ended up in labor. I kept thinking, okay, she told me to do this and she told me to look for that. And he knew things to say too. Obviously, you're not gonna give an entire spiel about what we do during that session, but just briefly, why is it important and what sort of things do you touch on? Totally. So yeah, I think

Birth prep, it's so funny, like obviously birth is so random, like you can't plan every single thing. But what I do say is you can plan what you would somewhat like depending on your situation. And I think that people just don't realize what options are available. And I think there's kind of like two sets of people. There's the people that are like, you know what, I'm just going with the flow and like do whatever. And then there's other people that are like really particular about what they want and sometimes almost get disappointed in their birth. So I really like found that doing the birth prep and just kind of giving the ideas

or like some options and it's not like you have to give birth on your side and do these things. But it's like, hey, this could be something if you haven't thought of it, you might really like. Or actually maybe you won't like this at all, but here's another option. And so the whole purpose of the birth prep also was just to kind of give people that, what do I do kind of in in -between? Because I think sometimes in that first few weeks, especially postpartum, you're just like, what even is normal?

Is it normal that feel like everything's falling out of my vagina? Like I'm freaking out. They told me not to look, but I feel like I should look. And then your partner's like, should I look? It's just right there. It's kind of the weird part. So I kind

to get it over with early. you know, you kind of know and like when you're already caring for like a new human and then like trying to care for yourself, you don't even know like what is normal, what's not. So I love to kind of give that like, here's one to call me, here's what's kind of normal, don't worry about this, but like totally call me if you see this. And I think kind of the same thing with like C -section, I think we just kind of like don't talk about it, but it's

pretty major surgery you go through, And some people too have just labored for a long time and then have gone for a section. That's no joke. That needs a lot of recovery, right? And so yeah, we love to just give that foundation of just what should you be looking out for, why is it important, and

the options are available to you. And just to get your like wheels turning a little bit that sometimes if you just don't feel like you're quite ready to advocate or you're not really sure what to advocate for, then you also have your partner that also heard some of these things too, like, and they know you better than anyone. I can tell Teresa is not quite right. Hey, people are are you cool with this? Like, do you want to keep going this way? Just to kind of interject when you're not able to necessarily do that for yourself all the time. Even some of the the phrases you told him to say during labor, like there was no way in hell I would have remembered

any of those things, like the little tips that you gave. And he would say the things that I don't even remember now, but he would say the things that you had taught him. And it would be so it was so helpful. Yeah. The other thing that was so helpful from that was learning like what it felt like to push. Right. Which is like, how do you know what it feels like to push? But that's why you go see a public for physiotherapist, because then they can actually make you do it and tell you if you're doing it right or wrong. Exactly. Like internally to know like, yeah, that's a push. That's like I had no idea.

And I think there's so much focus too, like in the medical world of just like push like you're having a poop and that like sounds reasonable. But then you're also like, but I don't really think about like what I do to poop first of all. And two, like birthing is just like way different. Like it is a different situation. And so I think when you're dealing with different pressures and then you're dealing with like

pooping in front of people. Yeah, like, yeah, it's just a whole different body. Totally able to just like have that moment to like let your body just like understand what it's supposed to do and like guide you through it. And yes, game day is obviously going to look a little bit different. But I think just like that, like you said, sometimes just little tips or things that, know, when someone's getting frustrated, that's not working. You can kind of interject with, hey, Maria said this, I want to try that. And I think that's kind of really, you know, helpful for quite a few people in the end to kind of just have options. I just like options. Yeah, no perfect way. But no, but it's great. And my nurses

like, wow, you're really pushing. Luckily, our hospital here, they're amazing nurses. It's a really great hospital for birthing. But they were like, wow, you already know what to do. I was like, that's because I saw. And they were like, okay, that makes sense. It was really funny. were like, okay, you know what you're doing. You totally know what doing. And then of course, you touched a little bit on postpartum and the postpartum health. Postpartum,

Of course there's major things you shouldn't have happen. Totally. And then there's some things that can like throw you off or maybe like you're worried about getting back into working out. Kind of like as a general rule of thumb, what should women...

kind of look into when they're going into trying to get back into their regular life, including walks, like people might be doing right now when they're listening to us. When is it okay to kind of do those things? In general, I know this is super generalized. Okay, so yeah, when getting back into exercise postpartum, think one of the biggest issues I see is there's this idea of the six weeks clearance. think that's like, everyone just

You know, you go into the abyss and your doctor says at six weeks, like, I think you're fine. Do you feel fine? You're like, I think I feel fine. And then they're like, okay, great. Go back to doing whatever you want to do. And that gets a little tricky because if we kind of really look at like the whole process, usually people aren't like typically running marathons, playing soccer, doing their major activities from let's say like 36, 37 weeks. If you even make it that far, no judgment to whatever you do. But a lot of times by that point, you're getting fatigued. So then you go from that time all the way to six weeks. Now,

Quite a bit of time has

And you know, we do we do condition a little bit our bodies have changed We're not sleeping. Yeah, where our hormones are all over the place like there's just so many things to consider So all of a sudden then at six weeks to just go back to CrossFit or soccer or running aren't really Typically gonna be the best options So I think when I kind of guide people to get back into exercise and that doesn't mean that you also can't do anything before six weeks So that's another thing like early on we actually do want to start doing some gentle core stuff some gentle glute things Despite potentially having a more difficult delivery. We still actually want

Because that's how we heal but at the same time we want to kind of taper it up to not going crazy And then kind of you know finding that sweet spot so it is easy. Yeah It's not an easy thing to figure out, but that's kind of why we're here So typically what I say is like when you feel ready and you're ready to kind of just start with like a walk I really like my advice is start with five minutes, and I actually

five minutes to the mailbox and back. Like you're not pushing baby. have, like you're just alone or with partner holding baby. Because if you come home and you feel like your pelvic floor is falling out or you know, have an increase of bleeding or you're aching a little more or whatever, I'm not that stressed that something like terrible has happened to your pelvic floor and you just weren't ready for it and your body has just told you. But if you went and kind of did a blast out hour walk around the neighborhood, hoofing it through and you came back and you felt that way, not to say something is like particularly damaged, but I think your recovery is gonna be a lot harder.

I'll recover as well or your body may slide backwards just a little bit almost kind of closer to injury face, right? So that's kind of where I say like start with five. I know it sounds annoying You'll build really up like build up very quickly. So then the next day if everything felt great go to ten, right? Right, then you go to fifteen. Okay, whoo fifteen. I started to kind of feel Yeah, right. haven't blasted through that so we work at fifteen for a little bit and we go through it So, you know, we want you as active as possible But at the same time within reason and there's also days where fifteen minutes is gonna feel really great and

you didn't sleep at all, your baby's been feeding all night, you're like, my gosh, I had a pickup bar for coffees at maybe half a glass of water. like that's my

That might not be the day that we're going to push to the 30, right? So you have to kind of look at all of those factors and it does take time. And right now, some of the current recommendations are really no high impact activity until you've at least gotten assessed and looked at that. And we're usually looking at it minimum of 12 weeks, but I've really had to push people further than that. And that's even just to kind of start returning to run or impact. So it does take longer than people realize. And there's also just such variety that I think a lot of moms, unfortunately, do kind of like gauge based on other people.

You can't do that. The healing process is so different for every person. like I really encourage people try not to like judge where you're at like based on other people or timelines quote unquote because it's just never gonna work out that way and you're gonna get frustrated. So just do what feels good for you in that moment. And that's like my biggest recommendation when it comes to activity. Yeah, I like that. I also so.

I, the 12 weeks to me sounded bonkers because I am a physical education teacher, I play soccer, I run, I walk daily, like that's just my life. So I was like, oh, I'm obviously going to be able to take Clark for walks for like a really long period postpartum. And then I had a pretty traumatic birth.

with a lot of blood loss and an episiotomy, which is not super fun. And then I was like, okay, 12 weeks actually seems quick. So for me, like flipped itself on its head. And of course I was seeing you, thankfully, because if you've had, if anybody's ever had an episiotomy, they don't take, they don't do them lightly. Like they don't often do them. It's usually, you know, some sort of situation where they have to, but like the amount of scar tissue that builds up down there, like that was a lot of, you did

It was a lot. I think to you, I think I remember having conversation with you of like, cause I remember you being like 12 weeks and I said, but Teresa, like had I given you an incision like that through some of your muscle on your leg? Totally. Like, do you really think you'd be like playing soccer at 12 weeks per se if I went through all of your muscle, cut you and like, and then once you saw that you were kind of like, right, like that makes sense. Like it takes six weeks for just the incision to heal. Muscle takes 12 to 12 plus to actually remodel and change.

Sometimes people don't realize that vagina's not magically different than any other part of our body. If I were to slice you open somewhere else, let's be honest. We gotta let that heal. But I it seems so abstract. It is weird because people do think that way. It's funny because you think, six weeks, they've signed the box. You can go have intercourse. And you're like, really? What?

Yeah, no, I know. I usually say in my appointments, I'm like, you can use me as the excuse as long as you need. Yes. I don't care. Yeah. But you know what? Again, that's so variable. could be like literally people are rearing to go at six and other people are like a year down and they're just like, just don't feel ready yet. Yeah. That's a -okay. Yeah. Because there's lots of different things that happen. So the six -ish to 12 -ish weeks, is that also for caesarean? Like would you give the same sort of advice for that as well? We do. So obviously that is, it depends on the caesarean too. Like if it was more kind

planned versus like an emergency that also, again, your body's been through very different things through that. So it does depend. But I will say actually, sometimes we push it further. So sometimes it's actually more than 12 weeks for C -sections, believe it or not, because your tensile fascia is a lot less and you're more kind of predisposed to like other issues. So yeah, sometimes it's actually even more for a C -section, it or not. But it does depend. Some people, and it depends on your fitness and all that stuff. But I would say actually like it's almost

in some cases. Well, I think too, like I looked down the Caesarian path because I was on what I was supposed to have had a scheduled one and then things changed. But it was, there was a lot going on. had placenta previa just for reference and then all of a sudden out of the blue a week before I was supposed to have a Caesarian, it moved, which is extremely rare because anything that's rare, it's me. So I was ready for that. Yeah, so I looked and you can't even like, I think one of the hardest things for Caesarian sections, you probably hear from Caesarian section moms all the

Is that they can't really even pick their babies up for quite a long time like that's gonna be so hard It is and like imagine imagine like having a toddler at home and then having a snow like it's pretty crazy So yeah, usually recommendations like no more than ten pounds or the weight of your baby. So, you know, it is it's a long time People can't drive so that D takes away lot of independence for moms and they're relying a lot more like think about even just

laundry baskets and groceries. Those things are more than 10 pounds and it's quite shocking. even pushing a stroller, depending on the stroller you have, that can feel more than 10 pounds. It does get easier over the few weeks for sure, but yeah, it is. It's a whole different ball game. And then imagine going from that and then being that you get the same advice all clear at six weeks.

You literally have done absolutely like you're told to do basically absolutely nothing. Yeah, and then like go run a marathon like I Know doesn't make sense. No, that's why you need to find a pelvic floor physiotherapist to see and then kind of the last thing so

This podcast is for all of Canada. Well, honestly, anyone can listen, but the So The Cybex Hotman Walk podcast is for all Canadians, especially moms and postpartum who maybe can't meet up with friends, can't find someone to walk with, and they're just listening to us to get, you know, a little bit of insight and maybe a little bit of mental health outside with their baby going for a walk. Is there anything that you could say to

about seeing a pelvic floor physiotherapist, anything, literally anything, anything you want to say to all the moms that are listening. Totally, well I think the first thing is like your journey is your own journey and like I think you know your body better than absolutely anyone else on this planet and you know when something's not quite right, but also give yourself like some grace in that time like you know sometimes it is a little bit normal to have a little something here and there like you just went through something super traumatic

You know, no matter which way it came out. It was not easy. Yeah, I think like that's the first thing I was like just have grace but then also like get the people in your corner if you can and I know that's not always easy but they actually there's a lot of advice that you can get even from like a virtual console if you live somewhere really rural like there are options that can really give you some really good advice in the meantime and I find a lot of what we do actually is the education component and yes, like there's a lot of benefit to the hands -on but if you're feeling like a little bit lost you're probably not alone. There's probably other people that feel

and we have literally heard it all. like people come in and they're like, my gosh, like, I don't know if I should, this is this weird. I was like, no, this is not weird. I've heard it all, everything's So like, don't be scared to like go and get those things dealt with now and don't like live in this like terrible like, you know, spiral of like, I don't feel good. And that's why my rule of thumb, like if you are four days post -birth and you feel like something's not right, I will get you into my clinic because I don't want you stressing about

where you are on your journey and I'll give you that advice. So I think that's the biggest thing is just like be graceful with yourself and there's no timeline to these things. Postpartum is forever and it's also never too late. So that's the other thing. Like people think like, I'm listening to this and I'm seven years postpartum. Yeah, come in, we'll start you back up to where you need to be. So there's never like a too

Yeah, no and I even have co -workers who are like very much postpartum They're starting to be into menopause or even older and they're still having the effects of their labor and delivery because they never worked on it and they're now seeing Pelvic or physiotherapist to help with it So like it honestly could help at all in time and I I truly think anyone well you guys treat men as well So literally anybody should just like just go and see someone and see what's happening To think like you always have to have like an internal exam. That's what stops people

If you came in and said, I'm not doing that, but I want to know everything else.

We would have just as long as an appointment of things to go over and so yeah I think like don't let that stop you if it's like totally terrifying but most of us are pretty well trained to like make it as comfortable as possible. How many times do we just like chit chat the whole time while we're like doing stuff and it's like time's up! No, true. I mean like I'm an IVF mom so anybody and everybody has been in my hoo -ha let's be real. I've had all kinds of things going on so to me it was like whatever no big

But I get some people might be like, you know a little bit nervous or uncomfortable with it But there's other things you could do like a lot of the things that you did with me were even just like standing up and sitting down and like focusing on my breathing while I was doing that and stuff like that. So there's lots of options for sure. Yeah, and before we

your company and where people can find you. Listen. Yeah. So I, we have two clinics. One is in Bedford and one is in Bears Lake in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Cause I know this is going further. and it's called Pelvico Health Center. So Pelvico is kind of all -encompassing, multidisciplinary, and we offer kind of fitness options for people that, you know, aren't sure what to do or, know, maybe you aren't super familiar with exercise and it's all very focused on strength -based and just kind of meeting you where you are. So there's everything from like the beginner of the most beginner to if you want to get

into barbells, we'll get you back into barbells. Yeah, it's been like a passion of mine to make sure that we kind of close that gap a little bit of the know the six -week phenomenon and that's kind of what our passion is. I love it you guys have like you can bring your babies with you and do your workout classes and you're having people there who know what they're talking about so you're gonna do things something feels weird when you're lifting something you're doing something.

there's people there to help you, I think is like so smart, such a great idea. What a great business model. No, really good. But thank you very much. I greatly appreciate this. think people will be, I feel like it's super helpful.

Like really helpful. Like it helped me so much. Like I honestly I feel like well I now can run without peeing. I'll put that out there. no tonight. No one was hungry tonight right after this and I can run and I no longer pee myself. like win -win and I had a crazy birth. So yeah, so definitely if you don't live in the HRM area and you can't go see Maria and her colleagues, check out your pelvic floor freezer. They're across Canada. Like every city most places

someone that can specialize in it. Totally, yeah. And like the training is pretty standard across Canada, which is really nice. So you're going to get pretty good care no matter where you go. Exactly. Perfect. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Cybex Hot Mom Walk podcast series. Follow the Cybex Spotify channel for more updates and for new episodes.