No matter which stage of pregnancy you’re at, you need to read this
("Give us yer brolly!")
Don’t you hate it when you check the weather forecast first thing in the morning (it’s going to rain), but you leave your umbrella behind anyway, only to be drenched in a downpour later? Doing pelvic floor exercises during pregnancy remind us of that. We’ll explain.
Your pelvic floor is a network of muscles that stretch from the pubic bone at the front to the end of the backbone. You can feel the muscles if you try to stop the flow of urine. Your pelvic floor muscles come under great strain in pregnancy and childbirth and if they’re weak, you may find that you leak urine when you cough, sneeze or strain. This is called stress incontinence. But you’ll be pleased to know you can try to avoid this by strengthening the muscles through the easiest exercise in the world – or, metaphorically taking your umbrella with you before you leave the house!
Pelvic floor exercises help to strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor, which helps reduce or avoid stress incontinence after pregnancy. Strengthen the muscles by sitting comfortably and squeezing them up to 15 times in a row.
You should do pelvic floor exercises, even if you're not suffering from stress incontinence now.
Check out this great film offering a tip to keeping up with these exercises.
Don’t forget your brolly…
