Preparing for Pregnancy
Considering pregnancy or actively trying to conceive?
We specialise in optimising the pelvic environment for conception and pregnancy. Our treatments are designed to reduce congestion and improve blood flow in the area, bringing balance to the pelvic bowl and its visceral contents to optimise its function. We aim to reduce the effects of stress in the body, creating an environment that is supportive of fertility and healthy pregnancies.
Our treatments aim to help expectant mothers adapt optimally to pregnancy.
Osteopathy in Pregnancy
Your body goes through enormous changes during pregnancy. Osteopathy helps your body adapt to these changes.
Unresolved mechanical issues can become problematic during pregnancy and may effect not only the mother, leading to aches and pains, but also the positioning and subsequent delivery of baby.
This is a key principle midwife Gail Tully, founder of Spinning Babies™ talks about. She calls it BALANCE. In other words, a mother’s pelvis and body should be in balance to allow the baby to position itself freely in the growing uterus. As she says; ‘An aligned pelvis may make labor easier’. Certainly deliveries where babies are positioned LOA (left occiput anterior) – i.e. head down to the left with the back of the head facing forwards and the legs kicking under the liver on the right – are on average shorter and less painful than other head down positions, such as the posterior positions. Gail also says that ‘discomfort is a sign of imbalance’ – This is a REALLY important message as too many women ignore discomfort, not realising its significance.
Signs could be back pain, pelvic pain, pubic symphysis disorder (PSD), round ligament pain affecting lower abdomen and inner thighs, sciatic type pain and rib pain. The earlier these symptoms are addressed, the better for your pregnancy and your baby.
We recommend booking a consultation for osteopathic assessment if you are already experiencing pain, or if your body has undergone previous surgery, accidents, digestive problems, or postural issues. Hopefully we can prevent a problem before it happens.
Our aim in a consultation is primarily to help bring your body more into balance. However, we also believe it is important to provide some education on the anatomy and physiology of pregnancy and labour, so you feel informed and empowered.
Post Partum Care
It’s essential to prioritise your long-term pelvic and postural health, by ensuring optimal recovery after delivery.
We should be giving much more attention to good postpartum care as a preventative measure in order to help women avoid chronic long term problems with issues such as incontinence, prolapse, chronic haemorrhoids, painful periods and pelvic congestion. In this country (UK) and throughout the world the approach has been to let women just get on with it and put up with symptoms until they become chronic. Even then the options are limited – contraception to mask symptoms, surgery. It is Rebecca’s passion to help women find their optimal health and avoid chronic issues later in life.
If you have had any sort of birth intervention we would recommend coming for a postpartum check as soon as possible. Rebecca regularly sees women who have had tears/episiotomies/forceps/c-section and who have felt that their birth didn’t go as planned. Treatment helps not only the physical repair and function of the pelvic floor, but with the use of Holistic Pelvic Care ™ she is also able to help women change the imprint of their birth story to help improve mother and baby bonding and the release of trauma.
Rebecca also treat cases of coxxydynia, pubic symphysis dysfunction and diastasis recti.
Visit our Resources page for more information and videos about pregnancy and postpartum.
Find out more about Rebecca's Postpartum MOT