The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Stop commercialising postpartum care and "pelvic floor or diastasis recti"?
Wouldn't it be nice if postpartum recovery was included in the NHS services, as they should be?
Rather than NHS GPs making Instagram commercials for private, and expensive, postpartum recovery programs we should ALWAYS be pushing for FREE access for women.
The Americanisation of British healthcare is a real problem and, the truth is, we would not accept this if this was happening for anything other than postpartum recovery?
Imagine NHS GPs advertising for people to get cataract treatment private. Or saying that "loads of people come to me with a broken leg so I tell them to buy X-program"!
It is outrageous that an essential service is being outsourced and that many women are being priced out of access.
So that's what I spend the first 15 or so minutes talking about, then I move on to "pelvic floor or diastasis recti?".
One of my PT colleagues, who is also a client, asked why online recovery programs now seemed to focus much more on pelvic floor in their advertising than they do on diastasis recti? What is the reason behind this change? Have the programs changed??
As always; HPNB is, and always will be, FREE for 3 months.
If you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
Though I'm not terribly active on Instagram and Facebook you can follow us there. I am however active on Threads so find me there!
And, of course, you can always find us on our YouTube channel if you like your podcast in video form :)
Visit healthypostnatalbody.com and get 3 months completely FREE access. No sales, no commitment, no BS.
Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions, comments or want to suggest a guest/topic
Playing us out this week; "Winless Game" by Moses Kidd
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Bddy Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Laab. That, as always, would be me. This is a podcast for the 27th of October. Actually, I don't need to do that because I don't have a guest on. So, yeah, ignore that bit. It is just little me. Today I am talking about why it's important that postpartum recovery stuff should be free on the NHS and why the NHS should not be advertising private providers of this stuff, and a big question I was asked by one of my personal trainer colleagues, who's also a client, said why is the shift now from diastasis recti to pelvic floor for so many providers? So both those things is what I'm talking about. Here we go. So welcome to the Alfie Postnatal Body Podcast.
Peter:Like I said, with little old me, this is the podcast for the 27th of October. By the way, 2024, 2024. And it is just little old me. Those things that I said before the music, they were and they were entirely accurate. I am being very smart.
Peter:I'm recording this on a saturday night, so I have a little bit more time than I have had over the last few, um, the last few months, because you know it's been crazy busy. I am here with kitty, who's finally decided, uh, started eating her dinner. So if you hear any noise in the background and and you have the impression that I had to stop, start once or twice, that's probably why Buddy and Lola also stand asleep, as is Bob the cat. By the way, just in case you didn't know, my wife is watching the Wheel with Michael McIntyre, so I have an hour to get this thing out of the way, and that should be enough, right? I don't know about you, but my Instagram feed and this is where we'll start my Instagram feed is showing a tremendous amount of ads for, let's say, a postpartum recovery program.
Peter:I'm not going to name the name, but you all know the one, and it's like every fifth ad or so that I see. Most of the ads I see are either Doctors Without Borders, they're for dog-related stuff, or they are postpartum-related stuff. That is very much what my feed is. Anyways, one in every five or so is an NHS GP talking into the camera about how they recommend this particular system to their clients, and I have a real issue with this, and not because I'm jealous of the system, um, the the problem I have with this type of what I call Americanization of of the UK health industry is is that things that should be freely available on the NHS, like postpartum recovery programs, are now being advertised by people working within the NHS. So I'm assuming they're getting paid for this and they use the NHS title and they say, hey, buy this and this particular program is £99 a year. So you know, buy this program Now. Spend £100 of your own money because you know we're not Spend £100 of your own money because you know we're not going to step up to the plate. If you imagine seeing private GPs recommend cataract surgeries go to Specsaver for your cataract surgery. If every ad you saw was for that. Or you know, go get your blood work checked through a private network, go get a private diabetes test that type of thinking. If you saw that massively advertised everywhere, people would be losing their minds over this.
Peter:But because it's a postpartum product and women have historically not just been ignored on this, but you know, women historically within NHS are already way, way down on how men have been treated. If you look at postpartum women, however, that gap is absolutely huge. Right, women are basically almost completely ignored, unless you're as I've said before, unless you're close to killing yourself and you suffer from postpartum depression or anxiety Well, even the postpartum anxiety, but isn't all the well covered within the NHS. But postpartum psychosis, that type of stuff, that is much, much more. That is where the focus is. But postpartum physical issues are are massively being ignored by the nhs. Now, of course, that means that providers such as you know, I have to be honest hpmb, my little website they step into to fill that gap. Right, that is that is what happens.
Peter:If, if, if things are readily available on the NHS and I've always said the whole healthy postnatal body should be available on the NHS. Right, I've said this before, I will if the NHS says to me and I've offered this, I've emailed this to people In Scotland we have what you call a baby box. So when the baby is born, the Scottish government sends you a box with lots of useful things in there and all that sort of stuff, and the box folds into a little table and all that sort of stuff, blankets in there and all that sort of thing. It's a great idea, idea. I have emailed ministers and I have made proposals that says hey guys, how's about we stick a leaflet regarding diastasis recti in there and I will give everybody in scotland because it has to be in the box, right. I will give a code that you can have completely free access to healthy postnatal bodies program, recovery program forever now within edinburgh. That's about edinburgh alone, which is the city where I live.
Peter:I know there's about 5 000 kids being born every year. My, so that would I don't know, across scotland what would that be 30, 40, 50, 60 000 kids being born every year. I could look it up, but I won't because it doesn't mean it doesn't really matter that much. But I said, listen, you can have it for free, right, you can have the access for free. And I was told, nah, no, thanks, we'll have the nhs take care of this. And and the problem is then, of course, that there is no, there is no nhs taking care of anything here, right, that is not at all how that works. So what we found is that the willingness for the NHS to pick this up for free isn't there. So that means that if they're not willing to do it for free, there's very little chance that they'll do it themselves.
Peter:And what that then means is that private companies will step into the fold and they will say we'll do it, we'll start making some money out of it, it's still a service that is required. I think almost everybody, whether you know it or not. If you're postpartum at any stage, you need some sort of recovery time, recovery program and all that sort of thing. Most people need to do some sort of guided exercise. So private companies will step into that fold and they'll say, hey, we'll make some money from this, and that could be personal trainers and could be women's health physios and all that sort of thing women's health physios and all that sort of thing. And I get that.
Peter:There simply aren't enough resources in the NHS even though there should be to give every postpartum woman six or 10 or 12 women's health physio sessions postpartum. Like I said, there should be, but the resources aren't there and that's not going to change. But there's a big difference. Then you could do something online, right, I'm not going to lie, hpmb is not that expensive to run if you look at UK. Only right, the NHS could.
Peter:I've had a quote through from someone that said, as a one-off, because you know, for shits and giggles, so to speak, I got someone to put together a proposal what they could provide for the NHS with regards to HB&B program but in an NHS style and all that sort of thing. One-off costs like 250 grand it'd be done, so it's not expensive within within the billion pound budget. I will run it. I've always said this I will give this stuff away for free and I will run it and I will still do the podcast and all that type of stuff. Um, but that's not being picked up right and that's so we know. The face-to-face help isn't going to be there and and the the NHS is currently NHS Scotland, but also NHS England and Wales are simply not willing to step up to the plate and run some sort of online recovery program for diastasis, recti, pelvic floor issues and all that type of stuff. So private companies step in. What you cannot have, however, is, of course, is NHS GPs who are not specialists in any of this postpartum related stuff actively promoting an expensive program and saying that, yeah, no, this is what you need to be doing. No, this is. These people should take their time and advocate for that program coming within the NHS.
Peter:The normalization of private healthcare providers within the NHS is a real. It's a fundamental problem if it comes to fundamental services. It's one thing to say certain cosmetic surgeries, you know, we'll do that private, we'll recommend certain cosmetic interventions I'm just pulling that out of thin air, right, as an example of certain treatment plans that are not medical but are much more aesthetic and say, hey, we'll recommend these people for that. There are perfectly good private clinics that deal with that type of stuff, so we'll send people out for that. It's also completely fine to say within the NHS you go see your GP and the GP says, hey, we'll send you on to a hospital and a hospital or specialist and that specialist works with they might refer you out to a private clinic and it just covers the cost for this. Right, that is again, I don't have an issue with that. If there's.
Peter:In an ideal world, everything would be within the National Health Service. But there is an overflow element, right. Sometimes a gp shift needs to be covered by by a locum, private private doctor. That is. That is the way of the world at the moment. What we don't need is I think there's a huge gap between that and actively telling people that, instead of coming to the nhs, which is free at the point of use, spend 100 pounds a year for a program that doesn't last a year, by the way. So you know, that is.
Peter:That's another issue I have with it. There's's like the program. Do you know what I mean? It is one thing for people to work with the NHS. It's completely different from people within the NHS actively being paid to say don't bother us, we cannot be bothered with this stuff. That is simply not good enough, especially not from GPs, who are the first point of contact and are not specialists in this, but who are the first point of contact for a lot of people that, hey, I think I have some issues. Well, go spend a hundred pounds. I don't have a hundred pounds, otherwise I'd be working with someone already. Right, that type of thing, that threshold.
Peter:This is why, when I set up HP mbi I, I've always said this right, the first three months are free and and most, most people listening to this will notice, the first three months covers the entirety of that other program. Right, the first three months are free, as it should be for everyone. If you find you need more after that, then for in our case it's, it's uh, it's like 50 quid for a lifetime full access and the whole thing runs like 9, 10, 11 months, however many months it is. But then you have it for baby one and baby two and baby three and baby four because you're not getting charged again. You're also not getting a subscription charge because you forgot to cancel after a year. Do you know what I mean?
Peter:It is nuts for the NHS to say, for NHS practitioners to actively promote a private solution when they themselves are failing so miserably. I know it sounds normal, but this is an essential component of healthcare Postpartum recovery, pelvic floor problems, diastasis, recti back pain, all that type of stuff. This is basic stuff that the NHS should be covering or your healthcare system should be covering. This is not a. I'm an NHS GP and I tell people to buy stuff for the program, right, and I get paid to tell people to buy stuff. That is not cool. It really really isn't. And, like I said, I'm not bitter about the program. It turns out that I have had a look at their accounts and it turns out we're slightly bigger now than that particular thing. That's maybe because we operate in different markets, so they're not in the same tax bracket, as Jay-Z used to say.
Peter:But it is a fundamental truth to me that this stuff should be freely available on the NHS, at least that first three months. Nobody should pay for that. You really shouldn't. You should have 12 weeks of postpartum recovery time completely free. So I always tell people and I always tell people this if you sign up to HVMB on day one, you cancel on day one, you still get three months completely free 13 weeks, I think it is. Actually, you get four months, access to four months worth of programs and you can copy and paste them. Right, the program is online but there's nothing to stop you copying the website and it says, hey, these are the exercises I need to do, because the YouTube clips are within the program, right, so you can. You know you have lifetime access to that three months and even if you cancel on day one, you'll have that access for 13 weeks.
Peter:So that is fundamental and we have to stick by the rules, by the principles sorry, by the ethical approach of if we think postpartum care is essential and we should think that, and I do think that, then we need to make it freely available to as many people as we can. You can't tell people just pay, just pay money right for a service that should be included in the NHS, and the NHS definitely should not be, like I said, nhs. People should not be promoting that. I think that is. I think you're so far removed from what you really, from what the principle behind everything really is, right. You're turning everything into a money-making exercise and, yeah, you know, if we all agree that this is essential stuff, then making money is kind of the last thing that should be the driving force behind it.
Peter:Like I said, hp&b turnover is higher than this particular program. Our profit is a lot lower because everything washes its face, right. So, yeah, there I am. I just wanted to hammer that point home, that this stuff, if you want to keep the nhs public, as the slogan says, you know, keep our nhs public. If you want to do that, you cannot have this type of stuff um, being normalized. That is what the issue with. That is right question I had with regards to dinosaurs. Right, and we'll wrap it up after that, because I've been rambling for ranting for 18 minutes now. I hope it rings true and I hope you get something from that. I hope someone listening to this will say, yeah, hey, pete, I work in politics. We'll pick it up.
Peter:Like I said before, I've offered access codes for free. Loads of charities have access codes for free. Masek all that for free. Loads of charities have access codes for free. Go to the Masic website, right, you'll find the HPNB access code for free lifetime access, and I work with several huge charities that all give the free access code to people. So if a government organization wants to come in and say, hey, we will take you up on that, right, you can have it. I generally don't care and there's no monetize, no sales behind it. I don't make money from anything else behind it, so I'm not trying to create a mailing list to sell secondary programs, right, this is it so? If you're listening to this and you're like, hey, trying to create a mailing list to sell secondary programs, this is it so? If you're listening to this and you're like, hey, people should get free access to this and I belong to some sort of organization, send me a little email. Peter at HealthyPostNatalBodycom. I believe you can now text the show text, the podcast as well, by clicking the link in the podcast description or something like that. It's something cool that Buzz Pratt, my podcast host, are doing and that's a cool thing, right?
Peter:I had one big question this week and it is quite a biggie, but I won't spend too much time on it because you don't really you don't really need to go into too much depth. Someone noticed one of my personal training friends and colleagues who's a client of mine, who's a few months postpartum, and she had noticed that a lot of the postpartum programs were shifting from diastasis recti to pelvic floor when they're talking about the program, diastasis recti to pelvic floor when they're talking about the program. So when they put the program description in the marketing of the branding of the program, there's a lot less talk now about diastasis recti and a lot more about pelvic floor. And she was like is that a buzzword thing or is there a link and exercises? Is the approach different postpartum for these programs? Has anything changed? And the answer to that is fundamentally no. Nothing has changed. For these particular programs the program is exactly the same. They have just realized that keyword search is Google. People Google pelvic floor more than they do diastasis recti because they don't know what diastasis recti is. But they do understand what pelvic floor problems are. They understand leakage, they understand weakness, they understand not feeling as robust as you used to that type of stuff and those elements are seeping into the language that they use to sell the programs. Nothing wrong with that. I'm just clarifying that there is no inherent difference to the approach Now what the pelvic floor therapist will tell you.
Peter:If there are pelvic floor issues, that is what their starting point tends to be, and there is a link between of course there is right between pelvic floor issues and diastasis recti, because fundamentally it's all muscle weakness, right, it's all, and I don't mean that in a bad way, right, but fundamentally muscle weakness or muscle dysfunction, whatever you want to call it there is an issue somewhere on the pelvic floor and all the muscles involved in the core are connected, right, if not directly connected, then they're next to each other and they're working in conjunction with each other. They're working with each other, or they're supposed to at least, and if something is not quite right, then something is not quite right, um, and that needs to be addressed. Unless you have a specific pelvic floor issue like prolapse or something like that, right, um, a bit of pelvic floor weakness. It just requires the same thing that a lot of diastasis recti-related weakness does, and that is strengthening up of the right muscles.
Peter:Almost every postpartum exercise program and postpartum physio will say that the approach there is the same. Everything covers these things, all cover that. So when I say postpartum exercise program, I don't mean your YouTube program, by the way, I mean a structured approach to resolving postpartum issues, right? So that could well be an online thing, or it could be face-to-face thing. It's just a program, right, and it could be NHS and it could be working withto-face thing. It's just a program, right, and it could be nhs and it could be working with your pt. Doesn't really matter much. A program is just an a to b, that's kind of. That's kind of what I mean by that. Um, everything is kind of covered in that.
Peter:If you have some pelvic almost everybody has some pelvic floor weakness postpartum it's completely normal Then most people say it usually heals itself, heals by itself. Time is a great healer. I'm not a big fan of that particular approach Because I think in a lot of cases time doesn't do anything other than pass and it doesn't heal anything and it means that you'll just take longer to recover because you've been walking around with a particular issue for a longer period of time. Right, if you've experienced a bit of leakage, for instance, for three, four, five, six months postpartum, which is completely normal. If you work on it, then it's easier to resolve than walking around with it for 10 years. Right, if a muscle gets weaker over the course of 10 years and not used as well or as efficiently, as effectively as it has been over the last, say, three or four, for a period of three months. That's different from a period of 10 years. And the same goes for diastasis recta. So all those things are essentially like I said. They're all connected and in an ideal world you'll deal with them all sooner rather than later.
Peter:And every single postpartum exercise program that I've seen that I rate that I think is any decent covers everything, and that includes squatting and glute bridges and all that type of stuff. Right, all those exercises are essential. Basically, nine out of ten types. What? And I'm oversimplifying it massively here. So you know, if you're in the physiotherapist section of the audience, then you know. Bear that in mind.
Peter:Nine out of 10 times leakage is caused by too much pressure, internal, in the same way that diastasis recta is caused by too much internal pressure on the core. Leakage is just a little bit too much pressure. Laughing, it's running, that type of stuff, it's an increase in pressure. That type of thing is a contraction, and the pelvic floor isn't weak enough, isn't strong enough to deal with that particular contraction. So that's what you then work on right. The cause is fundamentally the same, with that particular contraction. So that's what you then work on, right? The cause is fundamentally the same. It's just different muscles, different areas, but most of the postpartum programs are really good at strengthening up all the areas that deal with dealing with internal pressure.
Peter:It's not about my postpartum exercise programs are not about reducing the internal pressure, telling you not to laugh anymore, telling you not to do stuff anymore. It's about teaching your body and strengthening your body up so that you're capable and that you're able to do those things that everybody does. That is what it's about. Lifting heavy things should be okay, but a lot of women in the gym have a bit of leakage when they lift heavy things. They just do Especially postpartum women Laughing.
Peter:Laughing is completely normal. Right? You can't not laugh anymore just because you might pee yourself. Right? Don't avoid the comedy show. Train your pelvic floor, so to speak. Right, start watching Shrinking on Apple TV Plus because it's very, very funny, or Tatlasso or whatever. Start watching those things and don't avoid those things because you'll worry that you might pee yourself a little bit. Don't avoid holding a plank because you think it might make your diastasis worse. Don't avoid doing crunches because you think it might make your diastasis worse. Teach your body to do those things properly.
Peter:And there's there's an A to B to that. There's a starting point and a finish point. The starting point is where you are and the route in between is something that your physio or your personal trainer or the exercise program whatever you can afford right, whatever you can afford that gets you from that a to that b that you can do. B is doing all the things that you want to be able to do, and that's what it's supposed to be about and that, my friends, is supposed to be, if not completely free, then very, very affordable. Right, that's half an hour that I've waffled on about this. I hope you had. I hope you have a lovely week. I'll be back next week. I've got some interviews coming up because it's coming up to the end of the year. Can you believe that two months to Christmas, I have to get the calendars ordered for my pt clients? Yeah, that's the kind of guy I am right, I do doggy calendars every year. Anyways, peter, at healthy postnatal bodycom, if you have any questions, any comments, like I said, you can text now as well, which is insane. It's weird. Um, do take care of yourself. Here's a new bit of music. Right, bye now, do take care of yourself. Here's a new bit of music, bye now.
Peter:I found myself a situation Full of woe and complication. It's got me running in my dreams, got me driving and I can't sleep. And I can't sleep, hollering myself away, trying to beat a winless game, dodging bullets all the way. Maybe I'll find you on my last day, guitar solo. I can't escape this situation Cause I won't meet the expectation. Over mountains, across the sea, I can't vanquish what I can't see Hollering myself away Trying to beat a winless game, dodging bullets all the way. Maybe I'll find you on my last day, and maybe I'll find you on my last day.