S1E8: Celeste Goodson - Core and Pelvic Floor Health

On this week's episode we feature another expert guest to dig deep into a subject that's important during pregnancy and beyond - core and pelvic floor health with Celeste Goodson.  Celeste started her journey into health as a personal trainer, and after starting her own family quickly realized how neglected women’s core muscles and especially the pelvic floor was post-partum. When trying to get back into running Celeste spoke of feeling heavy and after a trip to the doctor, and a possible surgery on the cards she took control of her core rehabilitation. Your core and pelvic floor have to deal with a lot of strain and stretching during pregnancy, so expecting them to bounce back with no effort is a fallacy that a lot of new mom’s realize once they start struggling. Another fallacy is the idea that doing your “kegels” is all that you need to do to get your core back into shape after carrying a baby. Kegel muscles run from the pubic bone through to the sacrum, and controls incontinence and supports the bladder. In the words of Celeste, “they work like a hammock and need to respond like a trampoline” so after 40 weeks of carrying an ever increasing-in-weight fetus, it is no wonder that so many women have work to do on their core and pelvic floor post-partum. The issues of a weakened core after birth can present itself in many ways including urinary incontinence (losing control of your bladder), fecal incontinence (same thing, but with your bowels) and pelvic organ prolapse (weak muscles leading to organs “dropping” onto the vagina). Other common concerns include pain with intercourse, over-active bladder and constipation. We learnt that ongoing core and pelvic floor damage might not present itself immediately post-partum and that it is never too late to start rehabilitating your core. We also learnt that breastfeeding causes hormones to be released that can cause a little bit of laxity in the ligaments...but you can still strengthen the muscles before stopping breastfeeding.  Of particular interest to host Pam, working on your pelvic floor and core strength can help with childbirth of a second child...When women specifically strengthen the core muscles, it can assist in labor length.  It is also a great thing to be thinking about whilst you are still pregnant! Giving birth is a marathon, not a sprint (at least for most moms) and you’d be crazy to enter a marathon with no training! The idea of seeing labor as something you need to train for came up and definitely aligns with our hosts competitive natures. So hopefully this episode has given you some tools and things to think about when entering into pregnancy or after having a baby.  

Hosts: Sarah Newberry Moore & Pam Relph Jones

Podcast length: 40 mins

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