Pelvic Floor Reset After Birth w Yarlap's MaryEllen Reider

In this week's episode we are talking Pelvic Floor with the amazing MaryEllen Reider.

MaryEllen is the co-director of Yarlap, the wellness device to treat urinary incontinence and improve sexual performance and experience through muscle control. MaryEllen spends a lot of time researching and finding out what’s new in the pelvic floor world and the social media realm. 
She strives to empower women through their pelvic floor muscles. She enjoys getting to know her customers through social media and speaking events, and inspiring people about why the Kegel exercises and Yarlap are so important. 

 MaryEllen and her dad have emerged as a leading voice in the pelvic floor and sex tech wellness space and she's a delight to talk to so definitely check this episode out. 

As I say in the outro, I reckon the Yarlap could be a gamechanger for the pelvic floor.

We are talking about  many things including;
What is the pelvic floor and why is it so important?
Why, oh why, are pelvic floor exercises so difficult to do for most women?


You can find MaryEllen, and Yarlap in all the usual places.

Her website
Instagram
And Facebook

In the news this week; LOADS of HPNB related news

As always; HPNB still only has 5 billing cycles.

So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!

BUT, 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; "COOL!" by James Cole

Transcript

Intro And Why This Matters

Peter 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert feet on app. That as always would be me. This is the podcast for the 17th of May 2026. And if you're wondering why I'm laughing, I've got seven dogs and a cat and on at the moment, and it's it's carnage here. It is absolutely mental. So, in a change to the original programming, I am bringing you up from the vault uh about the pelvic floor, which I did with Mary Ellen uh Ryder, um, who is absolutely amazing. Um, I also would like to give a quick mention to um the perinatal and reproductive perspectives podcast I was on with uh Becky Gleed. You know, Becky came onto my podcast a while ago and I went on to hers. And man oh man, does she run a good podcast? Uh definitely check that out. I will link to it in the in the podcast description. Um, because you know we need to and and then you can rate the podcast and and and do all that sort of uh all that sort of fun stuff. Um so yeah, pelvic floor, how to do your pelvic floor exercises, uh, rather than just talking about the importance of the pelvic floor. This is something that I discussed with Becky as well. The importance of pelvic floor. I think personally, I think your pelvic floor specialist is the single most important investment you can make postpartum if you have to if you have to make one. That's the one you go for, even more important than say uh postnatal PT or diastasotracti and all that sort of stuff. So, anyways, without further ado, here's Marianne Ryder. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Bye. Bye now. The pelvic flow. So, what does it actually do? And why should someone who's given birth, you know, actually care about it? I mean, you have so many other things that you want to do and could be doing. And nobody, let's be honest, nobody can be bothered exercising after giving birth, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Right. You have uh another life form to take care of. So the last thing that you're doing is going, I'm going to go do this exercise. Um, especially an exercise that's extremely difficult to do, especially as a woman, because we have no visual aid that we can physically see the muscle doing what it is actually supposed to be doing, or if we're actually using the correct muscle group. Um, oftentimes women will use different parts, but the pelvic floor exercises are really important because they keep your bladder, your uterus, and your visceral organs into their natural position. So during pregnancy and childbirth, obviously everything shifts and there's a lot of pressure on your bladder. There's a lot of pressure on your pelvic floor muscles themselves. And sometimes they atrophy, or during childbirth, they'll go through this trauma and they weaken. Um, and so you really want to make sure that you maintain or you regain that control of that pelvic floor muscle so that you're able to regain and maintain that bladder control. So you don't have this like, I laugh, sneeze, cough, and I pee myself a little bit, or you have all of a sudden like lacklustre, sex, um, that kind of a situation. So it's really important. Um, the pelvic floor, in my opinion, is basically the foundation of everything. It's really important to keep all of those body parts into where they are supposed to be. So you know, you don't have your back trying to compensate, your knees trying to compensate this load. So it's really important to keep not only like a sexual health aspect, but also bladder control and just overall wellness and body pain alleviation, essentially. So the pelvic floor muscle is is integral to all of those.

Peter 4:03

Yeah, and it's interesting, right? Because it's it's we see a tremendous amount of ads on tele these days for 10 LAD and all those sort of products, basically female diapers, right? Um and it used to be when you uh saw ads like that, there were usually there was usually a woman clearly in her 60s or 70s advertising these things. Uh the ads these days all have women in their 30s and 40s. Um so they've clearly decided, you know, there's a market for this stuff because postpartum, like you said, you have a bit of leakage, you have a slightly weaker, uh, slightly weaker pelvic floor. And everybody kind of knows a friend who's given birth, or everybody knows a story of someone who knows someone who's given birth and says, Yeah, I just I just pee myself a little bit when I laugh. But that is just the price I have to pay for having my beautiful baby boy or my beautiful baby girl or whatever, right? That's completely normal these days, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yes, and it's infuriating because it's not the natural step, it is not this next step or something that you have to live with. And I think that for women, we're basically trained to suck it up and just what it is is what it is, and you're gonna have to deal with it. And when it comes to paying yourself, that is not something that is supposed to happen naturally. It is your pelvic floor being weakened, and again, it's just your body saying, like, I need help gaining tone, or I need control help. Please focus on this muscle group. And when you have had a child, um, most women are basically just told, do your kegel exercises. Here's a pamphlet. Good luck. And when it comes to these exercises, specifically kegel exercises, well over 50% of women who try to do these exercises do them incorrectly, even with written instruction. So it's almost like we are set up for disaster or failure from the get-go because we don't know, most women don't even know that these pelvic floor muscles exist until they're pregnant or trying to conceive or postpartum. And even more, sometimes they don't even know it afterwards. And so they get this pamphlet and they go, This is not even in the top 100 things that I need to be focusing on right now, and they ignore it. And so when they try to do it again, they have absolutely sometimes they have absolutely no control over these muscle groups, and that signal from your brain to your muscle is jumbled and lost. So you can't do it, and you need help from either a device or physical therapist or something like that to help you regain this control. And who has time for that? Um, who has time for that? It's it's it's crazy, and in my in my opinion, it's a little heartbreaking and and rude. But uh, but but it's really important to keep and maintain that control of that of that muscle. And again, it's so hard because really the way that we're able to tell it naturally is um a lot of times women are told, stop your pee midstream. Well, your toilet is not a gym. So you should not be doing that every time you pee because that can lead to other issues. It for some women, it can lead to UTIs and stuff like that. So it's not a long-term solution, it's just for you to kind of test um to see maybe if you need to go and talk to somebody. Uh, it's not something where you should be doing it every single time you go to the bathroom. That's not how that goes. Uh, so when you try to do these, a lot of times you'll do like an Oxford test, which is to stick a finger inside your vagina to see if you can clasp it. And you're not gonna want to do that when you're at a stoplight or when you're spinning with friends, or when you have anybody else there, or sometimes even when you're alone, you just have absolutely no desire to do that. But that's the real gauge to see if you have that of that control. Can you can you grasp that finger? Or do you have absolutely no control down there? Or is it extremely hard to insert it and you have a hypertoned pelvic floor? There's all these different things where I think we are just taught once you have a baby, you pee yourself. That's how it is. Suck it up, no need to talk to anybody. And in reality, that's not true. Talk to somebody, talk to your physician, talk to your licensed self-care professional, figure out, figure, figure out where you are, and then get the help and the tools that you need to stop peeing yourself because you don't need to be peeing yourself. It is a it is something that can be remedied fairly quickly if you have the right tools and information.

Peter 9:16

Yeah, no, that's what I always say. I I if I put it in the bracket of, yeah, it's common, but it's not right. And then it it happens to a lot of people, but that doesn't mean it is how things should be.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Uh yeah, I am yeah, I so so after starting with Yarlap, I well, before it actually, I thought that peeing yourself when you laugh, sneeze, coughed, or like had this sudden urge was something that only grandmothers had an issue with. And going down like this rabbit hole, I found out that my friends in my 20s had this issue and they just thought that it was normal because incontinence only happened to older people. Well, that's not true. And the more I kind of studied it, the more I'm into your lab, the more I realize that it's just this notion of just because it's common, it's normal. And that's not true. And so we're trying to kind of break that cycle. And at baby showers, I am now notorious for bringing a PowerPoint. Um, I have a PowerPoint on a keychain in a in a little USB. Yeah, it's about 15 minutes long, and and it goes through what the pelvic floor is, why it's important. And I have these animated figures of clitorises and vulvas that are in every single slide. And seeing these grandmothers and mothers, their jaws drop, but nobody listens as intently as they do. And then we talk about, yeah, and then we talk about like sex, we talk about the G spot and a spot and all these different things, and they're just sitting there, just curiously listening. And at the end, they're just like, How do we how do we do this? And I'm like, this is not a sponsored product PowerPoint. This is just me trying to tell you, like, go see somebody, go talk to somebody. This is not this is not normal. You are it's so easy to fix. And if the Yarlap happens to be that tool, um, be that perfect pairing, wonderful. But just talk to somebody about it because there's no shame in it.

Peter 11:26

No, exactly. It's it's it's one of those um one of those things that I always tell people, listen, the the doctor. So when you're given birth in the UK at least, you get given uh indeed you can give it a pamphlet or they send you a baby box or whatever they call it, and it says, Okay, you after six weeks, you you can get your GP check up. And they will say you can start exercising again. Whatever that means, they don't qualify the exercise, they just say technically you can do stuff. Um the leaflet also says after two weeks you can start your pelvic floor exercises again. Um I always think that's interesting that they say that because that's how they phrase it. After two weeks, you can start your pelvic floor exercises again. And I bet you almost any money that if I ask women in their say early 20s, so who might be contemplating having kids or who are not even considering having kids yet. If I ask them, so what are your pelvic floor exercises? They have no idea what I'm talking about, right? Because that is just not it's not on their radar at all from from my experience. Um and then indeed during your antenatal classes, these things come up. Oh, remember to do your pelvic floor exercises. Well, yeah, sure, I will, but they still have no idea because nobody and this the same goes for guys with regards to the their pelvic floor, at least. We don't know what it's supposed to feel like as in what it genuinely is supposed to feel like, how each muscle interacts with each other muscle. We kind of know from from what you described from from Kagos, we kind of know that idea of yeah, just stop your pre-midstream. And but it's not really what the exercise is, because I would personally beg to differ. You know what I mean? That is not just it's not just squeezed up, because it's like what you said earlier on. Uh I had a client that had um uh a personal training client with her problem wasn't so much that it was weak, it was that it was way too tight. She just couldn't release a pelvic floor. I told she had no idea how to do it. She just thought the more I squeeze, the better it is. And that was what she picked up from from that leaflet. Um because, like you said, written instructions don't really work all that well.

Tight Pelvic Floors Need Relaxation

A Device That Removes Guesswork

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, it's and I think a lot of people, again, when they hear pelvic floor exercise, they don't know, or if they do, they associate with a cagle exercise. But that's not the only one that's that is um should be utilized. There's also again the relaxation one, which is just as important, and I think it's never talked about really um that everybody just believes clenching, clenching, clenching. But if you have again a hypertoned pelvic floor, clenching an already clenched muscle is not going to do anything. In fact, if you go in the opposite direction and you're just gonna fatigue and overwork this muscle, and you're gonna be in a weirder position. Um, and so you have to learn how to relax and also clench this pelvic floor muscle. And during childbirth, relaxation is really important. And you kind of want to have muscle memory at that point because when somebody, when something is trying to exit your body and there are people staring at you down there, the last thing that you're gonna be doing is thinking, relax, relax, relax. That is the last thing that you are thinking of. You are thinking of I have never felt this much pain. Am I going to poop myself? Yep. And like those are the things that you're not thinking about relaxing. This is the least relaxing environment that I can think of. Um, and so it's really important to have that ability to have muscle control to relax on command or have that muscle memory to know what to do to help ease that process. Um, but we never talk about it. And for women, we don't even know again where these muscles are. So when we use the cagle exercises, we end up using our rear end, our thighs, or our abs. And if you're using those, you're not using your pelvic floor muscles. You're not getting the benefits that you're reading about. So oftentimes they will blame the exercise for not working. But in reality, we weren't we weren't ever using the exercises correctly to begin with. And just like any other muscle, when you are exercising, the way that you do it, the posture and the performance of it is integral. So if you're again not using the right muscles, you're not going to get the benefits. And so it's really hard to engage the correct muscle when it is so deeply isolated up inside your body that um devices like the Yarlap are really good because it it goes in and it isolates the muscle for you and it takes all that guesswork out for you. And I think that that's really important because that's where a lot of the hiccup is, is when we will say, I'm doing the cable exercises, but I still pee myself. Well, if you were doing them, you wouldn't be paying yourself, right? That's the idea is that to prevent or to treat that issue. Um, and so I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding. So again, talking to somebody and being open about your health is so important, especially to your GP, your physician, your licensed healthcare professional, being open and honest, like, is this normal? Is this is this normal? No, it's not. Okay, how do we correct it? What do I need to do to correct it? And then that kind of leading that's that line of thought to your overall wellness journey because you don't want to be peeing yourself and leaking from every orifice of your body.

Peter 17:09

Oh no, absolutely, no, absolutely. Uh it's it's it's I know it sounds stupid because it sounds so simple, right? You don't want to pee yourself off a given book, but uh too many people just put up with it. Uh or the or and and I've had this conversation a lot with people, they say, Yeah, I just don't go out to comedy. I used to go to comedy clubs, but I don't go out to comedy clubs anymore.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Um I get I get um I get I don't go trampolining and I don't go to exercise class. They don't they no longer go to the gym because they know as soon as they go, they're gonna pee themselves. So they can't they don't want to even worry about that shame. And I'm like, that don't don't toilet train yourself, fix the problem at its root. Um, I and get on with your life. There's no need to to shun activities that you loved because of this.

Peter 18:02

So that is one of the most common things I see when I still have my own gym. I still I know they do that. I um I mainly do home PT now. So I go to people's houses and train them because I found out when I have my own gym that you know it seems rather obvious in hindsight, but if you do postnatal stuff, people don't like slapping their baby halfway across town, making sure hoping the baby sleeps and then slapping them all the way back again. Uh so because that means it takes an hour-long session, takes two hours, and you know, good luck trying to keep a relatively newborn quiet for two hours. Um, so I do home PT now, but the amount of women I trained that was like, oh, just run quickly, run to the toilet just before the session started, because they were just concerned about them peeing themselves. And I already don't do impact exercise, anyways. That's kind of not what I do. Uh, because early postnatal training kind of avoids that, anyways, for exactly that reason. But then when I spoke to them about it, or when I when I when I when I talk to them about it and say something along the lines of so are you doing your pelvic floor exercises quite regularly, the answer would be what are you talking about? Or no, because I don't have time for that, or I don't know how to, because the healthcare professional that they've seen is not necessarily a pelvic floor specialist, or they were just given a leaflet, like what you said, or they've just kind of if you see a standard physio, they might not be able to they might be able to describe what a cagle exercise is, but they don't necessarily know how to teach you how to do one. And that is why I'm interested in the Jallop thing, because it's kind of like a it it takes the guesswork out of it, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yes, it does. That that was actually what it's it was designed for. So my dad and I are the co-founders of it, and he helped design a similar unit for the national healthcare system in Britain, uh, Germany, France, Scandinavia that they give postpartum, but nothing, but nobody's really aware of it. Um, or and in the United States, they don't even offer it. Um, that's not even they're just they essentially give like a photo copy piece of paper and go, good luck, have fun. Um also like keep your child alive. Um, you're gonna be great. See you later. And you're just and then you're just kind of floating. You're thinking you're overwhelmed. And again, like when you are overwhelmed, you're not gonna try something new from a piece of paper for this exercise. You are exhausted, you're tired, and you have no idea what they're talking about. So it's gonna be the first thing that you ignore, um, understandably, but it it shouldn't be, and it shouldn't be like that. Um, and but again, it's so hard for somebody to describe to you an exercise that is completely internal that you can't see, and is so, so private. Um, and so again, that's where like the Yar lap comes, is it takes away that guesswork of am I using it the right way? Am I doing it for the right amount of time? Am I using the right muscle group? Yes, yes, and yes. Um, and it's just you just sit there, you can you can pump, you can feed, you can do whatever, you can sit and watch a movie or a TV show, and it's just all gonna be taken care of for you. You don't need to think about it, it's all gonna be done for you.

Peter 21:41

So yeah, that sounds very handy, but we don't have to keep it all the way in all the way through the movie, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

No, it's 20 minutes. So no, no, no. I mean, sometimes we do. We have some people who actually accidentally fall asleep. Um, and the Yar Lab the Yar Lab has a bunch of safety features in it, so it just automatically stops once it's done. But we will have calls and they'll be they'll say, you know, to that is it is it bad? I left it in and then I fell asleep and I took a nap. And I think, no, you're fine. Like it's it's absolutely fine. I I would just never think of falling asleep. But also again, I'm I'm not to the point of that exhaustion.

Peter 22:19

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

So I but I'm very I'm sympathetic and you're fine. You accidentally fall asleep, you're good. Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong, nothing bad's gonna happen, you're gonna be fine. But uh it's it's crazy that this isn't a part of like the natural progression of postpartum. It's just like again, you got, and some people don't even, I have friends who don't even get a pamphlet. They're just told, do your kegle exercises, we'll see you in a few weeks, or we'll see you at your child's one-month checkup. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the mother. The mother gets one checkup afterwards at six weeks to see. And if everything is fine, they're great. Um, if not, they'll come back and do a follow-up, but that's very rare. And so it's kind of goes from being revolving around the mother and the baby to just being about the baby. Um, but we kind of forget that the mother needs a lot of help. There, she needs she needs that support. So, how do we how do we integrate that? How do we make it not daunting um and not overstimulating because she's already she's already so overwhelmed?

Peter 23:36

Yeah, no, that but that that's absolutely see. I the whole postpartum thing never ceases to amaze me, to be honest, which is why I do this. Um, because the system has always been I mean pre prenatal uh during anatal classes, people still at least have the pretense to care a little bit about the woman. Um as soon as the baby is out, nobody really cares anymore. And even in most antenatal classes, women's postpartum health never comes up. Right? It's baby postpartum health in the UK. Most of the uh the classes are run by by a charity whose main uh focus is uh breastfeeding and all that sort of stuff. That is kind of what what they're I mean they they they mean well and then they run excellent classes, but the focus is on the baby. How do you take care of the baby? Then there's one half a module out of nine classes that is a little bit about the now, don't forget about your partner, ladies, because he might feel neglected or she might feel neglected, and there isn't a bit on by the way, afterwards you're going to feel like a train wreck, and there might be a lot of stuff wrong with you, and this is how you cope with it. Most women I speak to don't know that, for instance, the reason for your six-week checkup being at six weeks is because up until the three to four week stage, your hormonal levels are all over the shop, or at least in the UK, this is this is one of the reasons why it's at six weeks. I don't want to speak for any other countries, other countries are better. Um genuinely some of France is on top of it with this stuff. Um, and I have some listeners in France that would email in saying, No, we're fine, what are you talking about? Um, so in the UK, basically six weeks, because your hormonal levels are all over the place for three to four weeks, and therefore the question that you get at six weeks is so are you planning on killing yourself? Right? That is kind of what it boils down to. Uh, do you suffer from postphyton depression? Are you feeling okay? That's the only question women get asked. At three weeks or four weeks, the answers the likelihood of a woman saying answering yes to that question is significantly higher than it is at six weeks. Um, and that's why the six-week checkup is at six weeks because otherwise, you know, there's there's a problem that we might have to fix. Uh, if you ask that question at three weeks and women say and someone says, Oh, yeah, actually, I'm feeling really, really bad. You can't say, Well, see me in three weeks' time, right? Because then if something happens, you're on the hook. Um, whereas if you ask that six weeks, I say, No, actually, I'm fine now. You've just left them to it for the first three to four weeks. But it's interesting when you say um then if everything fine is fine at six weeks, you get left to it. But no one has ever been fine at the six-week stage physically. No one's ever fully recovered at the six-week stage. I don't know. Anyone, 80% of women still have diastys rectile at the at the six-week stage, at least or eight-week stage, even um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Well, even if you go through like a my like a not minor surgery, but if you go through a a regular routine surgery, you have much more time to heal than six weeks. And and here we are, and we're pushing a baby out of our vaginas, and there's a gaping hole in our uterus, and you get six weeks. And that's it. There's no there's no follow-up, there's no um real support or something like that. So a lot of women end up going to like Facebook groups um to hear other people's stories, and those are well-intended as well, but that's not talking to your doctor, that's not talking to a a licensed medical professional who knows the anatomy and your hormones and how everything is supposed to naturally heal. Um, and a lot of times they will end up telling you, Oh, yeah, I pee myself when I leak, or I pee myself when I go to the gym, get like really nice tight black pants.

Peter 27:48

And you're like, Nope.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Nope. That is I I get it, and that is you're being kind, but that is not going to fix the issue. The the fixing the issue is gonna be doing your pelvic floor exercises, how they are intended to be, whether that is relaxation or clenching or both. Um give yourself some grace because you push something out and it is very traumatic. It is and I'm not talking like like a mentally, because it could be some people that you have terrible um birth stories, but it's just it anatomically speaking, it is a traumatic event, it is very hard on your body. Um, so give yourself a little bit of break if you don't bounce back immediately, or if something happens, talk about it. Talk, communicate.

Peter 28:43

Yeah, no, absolutely. So, how soon in so how soon obviously um you've like you said, you've just given birth, and two weeks later you feel a little bit better. But can we when can you actually start to use because they say it's after two weeks you can start your c and your your pelvic floor exercises again? If it feels okay, is always the the uh caveat that we put in the in in the little pamphlets over here. Um when at which stage are you ready postpartum to use the Yarlop? Because of course you're inserting something again, right? So at what stage is is it okay to go, okay, this is now a good idea? Or should we wait a little bit longer? Is it still the two-week stage?

SPEAKER_00 29:26

No, so we say that you have to be cleared for exercise because you want to make sure everything internally is healed. Um, you don't want to be inserting something when there's like a hole for a tear or something like that. So once you've been cleared for exercise, everything is healed. And that's usually again at that six-week mark. Um that's when we come into play, and that's where we really shine, actually, is postpartum re-education of the pelvic floor muscles. That's where we as our bread and butter.

Peter 29:59

Cool. And it's it's uh so this means obviously women listen listeners. Um good people, you have to advocate for yourself at that six-week checkup, right? You have to ask, you have to make sure that the doctor actually checks you out. Well, how usually happens in in the UK, and again, France is different, uh and so is Holland and so is Germany. But um in the UK, the six-week checkup is also the one for your baby. And most GPs are massively overrun and they're really, really busy. And they only see out of the 2500 to 3,000 patients they see every year, only five or six are postpartum. So they're not that familiar with it. It's not like the common code, which I see 50 examples of every single day, so to speak. Um but what happens quite regularly is that during that six-week checkup, your baby gets a checkup, and then there is a quick question at the end that is so how you do it. Um whereas what you're talking about, signing someone off for exercise kind of implies that there is some sort of physical examination happening. You know what I mean? And I I obviously get this a lot because I've got my healthy postnatal body website where I asked the same question have you been cleared for exercise? Before starting the exercise program, have you been cleared? And everybody goes, Yes, yeah, but the doctor has no idea what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Um, because there's no, there's not a because again, it's more of a QA at that point, at that six-week mark. It's not an it, they're not, you're not in stirrup, they're not checking you out down there, they're not looking at anything. It's more of uh, you doing okay? He's still bleeding. Um, is he latching correctly? Or are is she is are they latching correctly? And it's again more focused on you and baby than it is on you postpartum um wellness mentality situation. And so it's like, are you how do you how do you feel? Are you okay? Okay, good. Next question. It's more of a QA. Um, but if you've been cleared to exercise, cleared to have sex, clear for something to be inserted into your vagina um by your healthcare professional, that's where again, where we come in. Um because it is a it's a vaginally inserted device that you use for 20 minutes a day, three to five days a week. It's not something that you um have in place permanently. It's not anything like that. It's just a 20-minute device, um, three to five days a week to do everything for you. And again, you can be pumping, you can walk around, you can lie down, sit down, whatever you want to do. Um, because we know that most women don't have time to lie down completely flat, staying still for 20 minutes a day. That's just that's not how most women, that's not how our routines are.

Peter 33:04

No, exactly. It's interesting. So, okay, so that's early plus part. And we all know that, right? The the sooner you get into this after your first kid, six weeks postpartum, I in an ideal world, every woman would start their recovery at that stage. Realistically, we know what I know from my personal experience and I know from from the many, many surveys I've done on this, is that most women come to me at least after their second or third child. After the first, everything, and I'm air quoting here for the listeners, bounce back naturally, right? Bounce back in no time. They're no idea. It it kind of just felt okay-ish after the first, right? The first one you kind of get away with. Do you know what I mean? You have your first belly in your 20s, and it feels fine. The belly looks okay-ish. You're not you're not peeing yourself after the first one necessarily. Most most women, it's a second and the third that really mess you up. Um, but that is mainly because you don't really have, you haven't really fully recovered between the first and the second, and the second and the third, and all that. So I always say that it's never too late to start your postpartum recovery. You can be 50 or 60. I think the same goes for using the Yarlamp. As in, if you're 60 years old and you still have COVID-4 problems, this thing still works.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Oh, yeah, we do. Um, and we have people, we actually have somebody in their 90s, we have a lot of people in their 80s who are just like, I'm so done with this. How do I fix it? Um, and like, am I too old? No, you're never too old to have your muscles learn how to work properly um or properly again. And I think again, after the first baby, everything shifts, but it's like a it's a it's a non-noticeable shift, or not noticeable enough where it's raising any alarms or like any red flags. You're just like, I feel a little different, but like clearly nothing's falling. Like I don't, I, you know, if I go to the gym class, I'm fine. Maybe every third or fourth class I'll pee myself. But like it's not, it is what it is. You just brush it off lightly. And then the second and by the third one, you're like, what is happening? Like this is not as the third baby, just and I I'll air quote this time. We get a lot to say, I quote, wrecked me. And it's just like, well, it's been like it's kind of got the bull ball has been rolling for a while. Um, and then you gotta, yeah, gotta take care of yourself. Um, and again, that's so hard to do, but we get a lot of people who will be in their 40s, 50s who are like, what is happening? Um this isn't what I used to do when I was younger. Um, am I okay? We have people who are in like uh the throes of menopause as well. So it's every we get women of all ages uh who are trying to regain that pelvic floor strength and and do so. But we do get a lot of the questions of am I too old for this? Or the one that stumps me the most is always when I get the do I have a pelvic floor? Yeah, everybody has a pelvic floor.

Peter 36:23

Everybody's fancy all we all do.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Yeah, yeah. So yes, you do have a pelvic floor. Yes, you are able to regain that that tone. Uh, where are you? Are you? Do you need to learn how to relax? Do you need to learn how to clench? Like, where are you? So we can figure out exactly what you need to do to regain that tone.

Peter 36:42

Yeah, and and and for that, I always say, you know, first uh your first visit, if you have any sort of pelvic floor issues, indeed, whether you're when you're talking hypertoning or whether you're talking um not full-on prolapse, but you know, borderline um prolapse sort of situations, do get it checked out by Alfred. But just get a mummy MOT, even if you're in your 50s or 60s. Uh in the UK, we have these things called mommy MOTs um that you have to pay for yourself. Don't everybody don't provide them. Don't be silly. There is just a group of public health physios that basically they call it a mummy MOT, and you pay your 40, 50 quid or whatever it is, and they have a look and they say, Okay, this works, this is what your issue is. They at least I help you identify what the problem is, and then they give you a leaflet and tell you to go away. Because you know, we're not actually solving the problem, we're just diagnosing, yeah. But you know, knowledge is power, and at least if you have the diagnosis, then you can go to uh yarlab.com and uh or or one of the other ones, and and you say, This is what I need, uh, because at least you have the actual information there that can help because every physio in the world, um every sensible physio in the world is exactly like what you just said a muscle can always be strengthened up, right? People can wake up out of comas after 20 years and they get their muscle functionality back simply because they're muscles, that's that's what they do. You start training them, and all of a sudden they start strengthening up.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Exactly. And and I think the most important thing, and you said this earlier, is be your own advocate. There's no shame in, and there's a lot of shame when it comes to urinary incontinence or um like you know, lack of an orgasm or something is wrong with your, you know, something doesn't feel right in the body, and we're just kind of told to shut up and suck it up. But there's no shame in trying to better yourself, better your your health and your overall quality of life. So be your own advocate because nobody's gonna know exactly what's going on with you except you. So go in there and talk about it because I can guarantee you it's not gonna be the first conversation of the day that they've had about this.

Peter 39:04

Yes, and especially when you're talking to um your, of course, your healthcare professionals, your healthcare professional. They have heard way more disgusting things than whatever you're going to throw on the table. That is what I always say. I train a lot of GPs and surgeons, and really some of the stories I hear that is just insane. Um, so you saying it's sore whilst I have sex or I pee myself or whatever, that is not this it doesn't even register on their embarrassment scale. It's embarrassing for you, but it's not embarrassing for them, is what I'm saying. Right. Um, if you're working with anybody who's at all in the postpartum field, then it is just a standard conversation. Doesn't matter whether you're whether it's a personal trainer or a physio or whatever. Vagina isn't a dirty word at the best of times, but postpartum, it is the most commonly used word, I think, during my PT sessions.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, all of those, yeah, it's like the it's the main event. It's the it's the main actor in this in this uh in this show. So yeah, it will um there's no whatever you bring, it's not going to be the word, they're not even gonna bat an eye at you saying this, and it's gonna be very uncomfortable for you, but it is what it is, and and and it'd be uncomfortable goes away after two minutes, but once you realize ah I can have a conversation about this without which might be difficult with your friends, right?

Peter 40:42

But with a with a professional who knows what they're talking about, not so much at all, right? A body part's a body part, yes, exactly. It's the same as an arm, right? As in people come to me and say, ah, I've thrown with my pelvic floor. That's the same as someone telling me my biceps aren't big enough. Okay, let's fix that.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Exactly, exactly.

Peter 41:04

Cool. So on that happy note, was there anything else you wanted to touch on?

SPEAKER_00 41:08

No, I think that we covered, I think we covered everything.

No News And Outro Track

Peter 41:12

Awesome. Well, not happy note, I will press stop recording and press stop recording is exactly what it is. So thanks very much to Mary Ellen for coming on. That was a wonderful chat. I really enjoyed that. Uh, like I said, she is the co-director of Yarlab. Uh, that is Yankee Alpha Romeo Lima Alpha Papa. Uh, you can go to yarlab.com. I will obviously link to the website and her Instagram and Facebook page and all that. I think this is one of those devices that could well be a game changer. Um it is, like I said in the intro, it's a bit like the electric toothbrush. For all accounts, an electric toothbrush is not necessarily better than a standard toothbrush. As in the standard toothbrush can also do the job as well. But then the electric toothbrush takes the mistakes out of it, takes the human element of making mistakes out of it. And that that is huge, especially for an area where you don't really know what things should feel like, and and that is difficult to control. Um, so I'd I've like I said, I I think this is a this could potentially be a very could be a a life or at least health-changing device for many, many people. And I think it's worth checking out. That's all I'm saying. And you know, I don't get paid for recommendations or anything like that, right? This is just my opinion. This device makes a lot of sense to me because too many people ignore the pelvic floor, and this just takes all the guesswork out of it. So, how how could you not, right? Anyways, anyways, in the news this week, as buddy starts pottering as I record this. Um there's no in the news this week because it's silly season and there's absolutely nothing happening whatsoever. Uh you have a tremendous week, new bit of music. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

Get that chin up off the ground and flash that smile for me. Please on pep up in that step, it's going down shortly. Got so much weight up on my shoulders, all this jewelry on me. I wear my shades and sack because I go blind just looking down.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

I'm like the man sippin' Chardonnay on the buccane, lookin' like a young Elvis Presley. I've been overseas, I've been underneath. I ain't never seen none light of prison, 12 o'clock. I don't know nobody looking like that. I don't know nobody looking like that. I don't know nobody looking like that. I don't know nobody looking like that.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

Baby, baby, won't you listen to me? I got that flavor. I know you're dying to be. I ain't no dancer. Just got some hip in my feet. I throw your hands up. You bring the lighter. I got the use, you make a fire. Out at the use, follow me, lead it. Just watch the shoes. Gotta turn the feet up. Who you know who lookin' like this for real? Who you know who looking like this?

unknown 45:13

We know who lookin' like this for real. Who you know who looking like this? We know who lookin' like this for real. We know who lookin' like this. We know who lookin' like this for real. We know who lookin' like this.