pelvic floor exercises

[mckenzie]

check this out girls.

"According to a recent study in Norway, pelvic floor exercises can help ease labour. Pregnant women given structured pelvic floor exercise programmes for the last half of their pregnancy had shorter labours and required fewer stitches than those who didn't exercise their pelvic floor muscles. Interestingly, it also seemed to affect the way the baby lays in the womb - breech births were nine times more common in the woman not given exercises."

Dunno about that, but I did mine religiously. Had totally natural birth in double-quick time. No tears. Hooray for me!

Ditto for me. did loads of pfe's. 2 hrs labour, no stitches, baby in optimum position, no loss of bladder control!! Definitely worth doing.

but I did lots and lots with my first pregnancy and still had a horrid birth and some stitches. But I've today been told baby No2 is currently breech so I'm going to do even more exercises now!

I did 50 a day throughout both my pregnancies. Both labours short (6 hours and 5 hours) and never had a tear or leak. My second labour I had a 9lb 2 oz baby who got stuck (shoulder dystocia) - mw couldn't believe I had an intact perinium. I swear by them for fast labours and speedy recovery.

dinny, i'm dong them but find it hard to isolate the pelvic floor, I think i'm using my bottom too much.

Do you have any tips please?

Keep your bum relaxed, McKenzie Helps to breath OUT slowly when contracting the pelvic floor muscles. Reckon the best exercise is the "lift" one - start at the basement and go up five floors slowly, then back down. And then there's the quick open and close one. Oh, and there is one where you contract at the front, then the periunium bit then contract both upwards into a "smile". I did mine when travelling to work on the train and now I do them each time I am feeding ds. Happy clenching!

And it gets easier to isolate them the more you do them/stronger they become. Also, I think it's good to start as early as you can in pregnancy so when the baby gets heavy the muscles are already strong.

I was so good about these in my first pregnancy, 2nd time round now at 28 weeks have just done my first lot! Am resolving to do better from now on.