Why do we start teaching perineal massage (and all of our birth prep) earlier than most at PelvicSanity? There are a few reasons.
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The first is simple - 37 weeks is considered full term.
No one will try and stop it if you go into labor. So we plan to have all of our birth prep complete by then. Any time we get after 37 weeks is just a bonus. We're keeping our people comfortable or reminding them of things we've already covered in those final weeks.
Next, most of our pregnant folks are coming in with other symptoms. So if we're planning to wait until 34 or 35 weeks, our plan to teach perineal massage might get blown up if they have a flare-up of back pain or need other help.
As they get closer to delivery, our people (naturally) get more focused on the baby as well. They are going to more OB appointments, which might get in the way of our plan of care. They're trying to prepare for the arrival of the new addition, and have other stresses as they plan for delivery and bringing the new one home.
Finally, I think we usually oversimply perineal massage. It's not that easy! It's a difficult area to reach. The tissue is often tender and needs to be worked on by us prior to teaching them to do it themselves. They may not want a partner to help or might feel self-conscious about doing this. Remember, not everyone is as excited about the pelvic floor as we are!
And speaking from personal experience, I'm guessing even many of us - as pelvic rehab providers - don't do much for our own perineal massage. So if we're going to emphasize it to patients, we need to give ourselves time to do it!
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Make you more confident in your clinical practice.
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Let you go back to your work: you'll have lifetime access to the lectures and handouts. Check out all the clinical courses we offer (www.pelvicptrising.com/clinical).
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Nicole Cozean, PT, DPT, WCS
Founder of Pelvic PT Rising and PelvicSanity Physical Therapy in Southern California.
Dedicated to forever changing pelvic health with online clinical courses to help you be more confident in your practice and business resources to help start and grow pelvic health businesses.
Jesse Cozean, MBA
Co-founder of the Pelvic PT Rising and the Rising Podcast.
Jesse uses his business experience to help pelvic health business owners start and grow their practices so they can build a practice that truly works for them. From website design, SEO, conversions, marketing, finance and money mindset, he wants to make the process of owning your own practice easier and fun.