Teach pelvic floor exercises in school

[thatdinothing]

Interesting.

Teach pelvic floor lessons in school, say guidelines www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57640558

Good idea.

Though mum taught us when we were kids and I still have a prolapse. That said, because I was in good shape pre birth and knew my ‘normal’ I was able to proactively go after nhs help.

Good idea

Yes I was taught to practise stopping my wee (no idea if that's part of it!)

Ah, yes. Girls should be given Perifits at the age of 12. Competitive Perifiting would be good for pelvic floors. And so good for the orgasms. And quite good for the penises. Ooh, they haven't said so, but is this more of the 'handmaid' type training?

Basic Pilates would be a good thing to teach in school too. Posture and linking to pelvic floor, alignment etc.

@DoingItMyself

Ah, yes. Girls should be given Perifits at the age of 12. Competitive Perifiting would be good for pelvic floors. And so good for the orgasms. And quite good for the penises. Ooh, they haven't said so, but is this more of the 'handmaid' type training?

No it's for longer term women's health.

That said, they'll have to know exactly what a girl is.

I've had c sections so my pelvic floor is ok; I've still noticed with age that I need to be mindful.

It also supports longer term lower back health.

Is it bollocks 'for longer term women's health'. That's just the cover story. Yes, you could save the NHS money if you prevented urinary incontinence in women - and you could save more by discouraging anal sex which can lead to fecal incontinence in women, too. They've come up with this now, because...?
Schools are not the place. The right time would be prior to during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth.
Training your internal muscles when young won't do you any harm - I started at fourteen. And yes, they'd have to admit that some children are biologically female and have trainable muscles down there... so maybe it's not all bad!

Schools are not the place. You could say "Oh schools could teach that, what a great idea!" about a gazillion pieces of health or general life advice. Kids aren't very good at following advice even about stuff that has fairly imminent consequences. And the more advice you bombard them with,the less seriously they take it. The idea of cohorts of 14yo girls dutifully starting doing kegels to stop them getting a prolapse after they've (maybe) had babies is a bit ridiculous imo.

I was never told it was because of having babies. It was because I was female.

Modern career lives with long periods of sitting and flat ways of moving (or rather not moving) don't lend themselves well to backs, muscles and ligaments; female pelvic anatomy is more at risk of continence issues simply due to anatomy.

A physio who came into school to work with a child who had poor muscle tone commented that the trend for more schools to be built without stairs and general lack of climbing in children's lives now meant that there were increasing issues with hip flexors in children.

Why can't it be seen within this context as a part of personal, social and health education?

It's a NICE consultation, linked here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feminism/4283000-Pelvic-Floor-Dysfunction-please-comment-on-NICE-draft-guidelines

I think pe could do with modernising. Pilates with pelvic floor would be so good as i could have used it in adult life. I hated pe. It put me off sports for life.

I just think it's very easy for people to pick something they personally think is particularly important, decide it should be taught in schools, and assume that students will take any notice.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, after spending all day seeing students show virtually no interest in advice on how to improve in their own GCSE subjects. And hearing ds tell me that most students (who have of course all been repeatedly taught about healthy eating and probably about food waste) automatically throw away fruit or anything remotely healthy in their packed lunches every single day. I suppose a few keen girls might do kegels.

I get that POV lazy.

And why should schools take it on when they've enough on their plate? We are now social services etc.

I think it could fit well into a better pe curriculum, that includes a wider ranges of activities. As Mildred says.

Some of the news coverage is euphemistic. Sexually active young people who develop repeated urinary tract and other infections or injuries may be in need of some of this advice - particularly if they're not to run into long-term problems at a comparatively young age.

NICE has a fairly large number of evidence reviews on this topic and some draft recommendations and they're inviting comment on them. One of the suggestions is introducing young people to the concept of pelvic floor dysfunction earlier than usual - and also teaching them some helpful anatomy along the way.

Agree that PE would be a great place to incorporate it - pilates or Mutu style exercises are basically normal strengthening exercises where you are taught to focus on the pelvic floor at the same time. I believe school PE needs to broaden its outlook away from just competitive team sports anyway.

Not everything can be taught in schools! I don't mean conceptually, I mean practically. Every single campaign from menopause to sexual abuse the cry goes up 'teach children about this in schools'. It's madness. What is it - about 10% of kids leave school functionally innumerate or illiterate?

Women need to learn how to do kegels effectively, healthcare practitioners need to talk about it more, we need more women's health physios, GPs need to refer more women to specialists, maternity services need to stop bullying women into vaginal births when there are significant risk factors. Like most things it's complex and there isn't an easy answer. Giving year 9 one half-hour lesson about pelvic floor exercises is largely pointless.

Not everything can be taught in schools! I don't mean conceptually, I mean practically. Every single campaign from menopause to sexual abuse the cry goes up 'teach children about this in schools'. It's madness. What is it - about 10% of kids leave school functionally innumerate or illiterate?

Exactly. Schools don't have the time, the qualified staff or the resources to teach effectively all the things they are already supposed to teach.

Girls should be taught about pelvic health but I don't like the way this has been approached. The articles I"ve read on this are suggesting this is taught as part of sex and relationship education, which is a bit fucked up 😐 It should be taught as part of PE surely? In a 'this is how to keep your body healthy' way rather than 'you need to stay tight for the boys'/handmaids tale way.

Also, I fear there is a lot of victim blaming from health professionals around the subject of pelvic floor health. Some seem to give the impression that all pelvic injuries/prolapses etc can be avoided by doing your excercises. This just is NOT true. And why don't they focus on helping women who do have pelvic floor dysfunction?

I think schools are the place, and it would be part of teaching either in a general strength and conditioning session, or as an add-on to warm up/cool down stretching

It's good for both boys and girls, and an important exercise.

@PaleGreenGhost

Agree that PE would be a great place to incorporate it - pilates or Mutu style exercises are basically normal strengthening exercises where you are taught to focus on the pelvic floor at the same time. I believe school PE needs to broaden its outlook away from just competitive team sports anyway.

Absolutely; apparently that kegels are only a part of helping the pelvic area and lower back avoid problems.

Katy Bowman advocates for squatting exercises with a lot of research to back it up.

I don't hate the Kegel at all, but what people need to know is there is a poorly understood, much larger whole-body issue going on in those with PFD that the Kegel doesn't even touch. If this larger whole-body issue were addressed, you would never need to kegel to keep your junk in place.

The pelvic floor is not supposed to be a muscle you "train". It is a muscle meant to be working continuously based on the correct use of the lower limbs and muscles in the trunk: diaphragm, psoas, TVA and TVT, lumbar extensors, multifidus, intercostals, latissimus, gluteus maximus, TFL, etc. Because of years of mal-alignment and incorrect lower leg muscle development, your larger muscles are not bestowing the PF with the space and support it needs to maintain a healthy tension. That tension is necessary to its ability to generate force. A Kegel is a good way to "fake it", but the PF is too small to make up for the work not being done by the larger, slacking muscle groups.

www.nutritiousmovement.com/kegel-queen/

MUTU was great, I didn't do it all but I still dip in occasionally. I think the author worked with Katy Bowman as well as being a women's health phyiso.

Interestingly a lot was similar to some martial arts stuff I used to do. Another thing I feel should be on the curriculum.

@lazylinguist

Not everything can be taught in schools! I don't mean conceptually, I mean practically. Every single campaign from menopause to sexual abuse the cry goes up 'teach children about this in schools'. It's madness. What is it - about 10% of kids leave school functionally innumerate or illiterate?

Exactly. Schools don't have the time, the qualified staff or the resources to teach effectively all the things they are already supposed to teach.

Yes. This. I also don't think many teens would engage with this as lazylinguist has already pointed out previously.

I'd like it to be taught. Along with consent & contraception it's such an important issue for women's health.

But the biggest biggie for me is prevention of UTIs. They are not just a routine part of being a woman - they are mostly preventable. Thousands of sick days must be lost every year, women suffer pain and discomfort and long-term health issues if they are allowed to become recurrent. They also cost the NHS a fortune.

Wipe your bum from front to back. Teach your daughters to wipe their bums from front to back. Drink enough clear fluids & have a wee after sex.

Katy Bowman advocates for squatting exercises with a lot of research to back it up.

That's very interesting. I have pelvic damage as a result of 2 c sections and the physiotherapist I saw give me lots of info on kegels. It was only when I started with a personal trainer doing body weight training and then weight lifting that my pelvic floor actual improved.

None of this is up to date or relevant. Knowledge of the structure. Function and care if the pelvic floor has moved on since the idea of ‘pelvic floor exercises’. I suggest we wait until modern science developed some basic understanding of what the pelvic floor even is before start deluging children with misinformation.

Of course, being an aspect of female anatomy rather than male, it’s a long way down the priority list for research.

I’ve heard it described as the only organ left in the human body that isn’t known, apart from the brain, and we are investigating the brain