Tips for pushing with prolapse
Over 70% of women are diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse at some point in their lives.
Common prolapse symptoms include:
Heaviness/pressure, or feeling like something is falling out
Vaginal gas with certain positions
Feeling “Looseness”
poor fitting menstrual cup or tampon
Unwanted leakage
Many women that have been diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse are fearful of having another vaginal birth, specifically “pushing the baby out”. So let’s talk about this…
Tip 1: What you do during your 9 months of pregnancy matter more than HOW you push
Research has shown that the second stage of labor (or the pushing stage) does not impact the degree of prolapse, but rather that in general the strain of subsequent pregnancies on the ligaments and muscles increases the risk for prolapse worsening
We recommend seeing a pelvic physical therapist to help improve your pelvic floor strength, endurance and overall function to better support your pelvis and pelvic organs during pregnancy.
Tip 2: Learn to relax your pelvic floor
Our uterus and uterine contractions help to push out the baby, not our pelvic floor!
Thus, we recommend focusing on learning to properly relax your pelvic floor muscles to reduce any resistance at the vaginal opening as baby is coming out.
How do you know if your pelvic floor is too tight?
In general if you experience pain with intercourse, have tailbone pain, SI joint pain or experience regular constipation you may have tightness in your pelvic floor and benefit from seeing a Pelvic PT.
Tip 3: Babies positioning matters
Babies positioning can greatly impact how long we have to push for, and how hard our body has to work. We recommend staying active and upright during your labor to allow gravity to work in your favor and reduce the amount of work you have to do. The lower baby is in your pelvis the less work you have to do. In labor your nurses or birth provider can inform you on what station baby is at or how far down baby is in the birth canal.
Tip 4: Open Glottis (open mouth) Pushing
An open glottis or open mouth pushing strategy helps to reduce the amount of downward pressure going to our pelvic organs and ligaments. This pushing strategy also helps to keep the pelvic floor muscles relaxed reducing muscular resistance at the vaginal opening.
Please note that there may be brief periods of time where a bearing down, breath holding or “purple pushing” strategy may be recommended to adjust babies position but this should not be the primary form of pushing for the total duration of the pushing stage.
If you are currently pregnant and want to learn more about how you can
Shorten your pushing stage by optimizing babies positioning
Open up the pelvis to allow baby to descend through labor & delivery positions
Reduce your risk of orthopedic, pelvic floor and nerve injuries
And most importantly how your birth partner can be your continuous labor support to improve your overall birth experience
Check out our Pregnancy Prep Class
Our team of physical therapist specialize in orthopedics, obstetrics and pelvic health. If you are looking for in person or virtual one on one support during your prenatal or postpartum journey, please check out our page!
