New motherhood, French stylee

[MyEye]

rather fascinating Guardian feature here

Does anyone else read this article and immediately start doing "those" exercises?

The key though is do they reduce the number of women needing procedures post menopause for stress incontinence etc, or is it all pandering to the patriarchy?

I didn't even need to read the article cherry, I just read your post! It's like an automatic switch isn't it!

Glad it wasn't just me cherry!

I found the whole thing terrifying, but its culturally totally alien

I read a good article on the same subject a few months back. it was trying to rouse the women of Britain to demand similar from the NHS - on the grounds you point out Rempy.

Must say, I'd like it. and actually, I'd like the flat abs bit too. Seriously, your stomach muscles take a heck of a battering, and that leads to all sorts of problems too.

It's interesting, the article is really funny but it points out, in an oblique way, that the French do accept that childbirth and pregnancy exact quite a heavy toll on the female body.

whereas we tend to be very silent and embarrassed about it.

Saying that, though, I'd go AWOL for the session with the nurse and the wand and the rubber gloves. All the cultural pressure in the world wouldn't get me there.

I had post natal kine here in Belgium. it was great, like having my own personal trainer once a week fro nine weeks. Pelvic floor exercises, abdominal exercies, back exercises.

No sonde involved though fortunately.

The emphasise is to prevent incontinence.

I do wish the NHS were a bit more prescriptive about postnatal care. We were given leaflets about postnatal exercise classes and a physio visited the ward a couple of times before I wents home, but when you've got a newborn it can seem like an easy thing to fudge...

And then two years later you've got flu and you're being sick so you wet yourself

GP appointment for me.

Well I had state funded phsyio down there after both births and it was never presented to me as having anything to do with my sex life and everything to do with preventing stress incontinence and other problems later in life.

Would have loved some help with getting back my pelvic floor (running upstairs would result in leakage, coughing and sneezing would have me leaning on anything so I could cross my legs and stop slightly to stop all hell running loose) I had a pamphlet and a session with a rather funny incontinence expert (she should have been a comedienne as she really was very entertaining) in a room with 6 other very embarrassed women.

When I told my consultant I was exercising (6 months after the birth and I was still having problems) he said -why was I doing that as I couldn't expect to get my pre-pregnancy shape back so quickly. When I explained it was nothing to do with shape moreover trying to do the best I could to stave of a repeat of PND and also avoid Ad's he didn't seemed that bothered about my reasons.

It was all very high tech. There was a computer screen with wavy lines and I had to control my squeezing to ensure 'my' line followed the one on screen.

Sort of vaginal karaoke

I would love that! My parents live in France, maybe I should de-camp over there for the birth of no3.

Reminds me of my old GP who insisted I should leave my 2-month old failing-to-thrive-and-too-weak-to-breastfeed baby and go into hospital to have my fanjo re-cut and -stitched "because the greatest gift you can give your baby is a father".

The idea that a man might choose to hang around anyway because he is fond of his wife, or because he wants to help keeping his baby alive, did not register with her.