If you ever had a baby, this care is for you. It doesn’t matter if you are 25, 45, or 65. You need to experience postpartum renewal.
What is Postpartum Renewal?
Postpartum renewal is manual hands-on therapy and natural medicine that supports your body to reclaim health after having a baby.
In our culture postpartum care to help the mother’s body navigate a return to a non-gravid status is absent.
Because of this, I commonly hear “Ever since I had a baby XYZ” – a particular symptom has been present.
Whatever the symptom is, it is kind of annoying, but the new normal for you. In any case, it is not bad enough to interrupt your busy life.
Plus, where would you go for help?
Maybe you have tried physical therapy, or chiropractic, or acupuncture and it helped for a while, but now the symptoms have come back.
Or maybe something new has happened like having another baby, or an injury, or weight gain or loss, or menopause . . . and the symptoms are worse.
It doesn’t matter if you are 6 months postpartum, or 60 years postpartum.
You can still benefit from postpartum care.
Common Symptoms After Having a Baby
- Back Pain
- Pelvic Pain
- Sciatica
- Varicose Veins
- Fullness in the Vagina
- Difficulty Holding Pee
- Difficulty Conceiving
- Not Being Able To Have an Orgasm
- Constipation
- Diastasis Rectus Abdominis (DRA)
Things Don’t Just Go Back to Normal After Having a Baby
We assume everything will just go back to “normal” after having a baby.
But it generally does not.
Just as a woman needs a midwife or OB to help her bring the child into the world, she needs help recovering from pregnancy and birth from a manual hands-on therapy expert.
In the postpartum, women are often extremely focused on the needs of their baby and small children. They lift things that are too heavy, and put their body in awkward positions to meet the needs of the children without too much concern for their own well-being.
This can make it difficult to heal in the postpartum.
The ligaments of the uterus take about six months to return to a shorter length that can stabilize the non-pregnant uterus. If a woman is lifting too much and moving in awkward ways, the uterus will struggle to stabilize into the proper position.
It is time for women to stop accepting health annoyances as normal and tolerable
My Approach to Postpartum Renewal
My approach to postpartum renewal is different from most physical therapists and chiropractors. It is different not only because of the value I place on the energy and emotional bodies, but also because of the way I enter into care of the physical body.
To address the physical body, I always start by assessing the fluid body by the shoulders. Then I work my way down or up, listening for the body’s guidance.
I only do intrapelvic care after the fluid system and the visceral system are set up adequately to be able to receive and integrate the intrapelvic care.
In my experience, this global approach helps to reset the body”s self-regulatory mechanisms so it is more likely that the treatments will have a long-term benefit.
What to Expect During Your Postpartum Renewal Treatment
During your postpartum renewal treatment you can expect to experience many forms of manual hands-on therapy including
- The Barral Technique of visceral manipulation
- Lymphatic Drainage
- Vascular Manipulation
- Craniosacral Therapy
- Chiropractic Adjustments
- Holistic Pelvic Care/Pelvic Floor Therapy
My first goal is to help the transverse planes of your body come into a parallel position. Pregnancy opens up the respiratory and pelvic diaphragms (transverse planes), and rolls up the transverse colon. These planes often do not come back to neutral on their own after having a baby.
This can result in not being able to breathe properly, not being able to digest properly, incontinence, and constipation
My second goal is to normalize the position and movement of the kidneys. The kidneys should live in the back of the body by the lower ribcage. With the push of labor, or lifting things too heavy in the postpartum when the core muscles are not yet strong, the kidneys are transit down the fascial funnel they travel in and distort the function of the pelvic bowl and the abdomen, and the chest. The kidneys provide stabilizing support to keep the respiratory diaphragm properly engaged to prevent tenting. If the kidneys are not there to keep the respiratory diaphragm properly engaged, the venous and lymphatic return will often be compromised leading to symptoms such as varicose veins further down or swelling. If the kidneys have traveled down their fascial funnel, the bladder and uterus, and the intestines can also be affected.
My third goal is to normalize position and function of the ascending and descending colon. Pregnancy necessarily rolls out the ascending and descending colon to make room for baby. The colon does not roll back in on its own.
In my experience the ascending and descending colon are the girders of the abdomen and need to be positioned properly to provide the infrastructure necessary to lift the pelvic organs, properly activate the respiratory diaphragm, and allow for proper fluid drainage.
After these things are set up well-enough, I begin to work with the uterus and bladder through the abdominal wall.
I want to maximize movement and relationship of these organs first through the abdominal wall and later through the pelvic bowl.
Once we start working with the pelvic bowl, the rest of the body is not forgotten.
Our goal is to integrate the whole body and being in this process, so we will continually be revisiting areas of the body we have already treated.
This is because everything is related in your body.
To be able to self-regulate, these relationships must be optimized.
Emotional & Energetic Postpartum Renewal
Many times, there will also be an energetic or emotional component held in the body that needs to be released for postpartum renewal.
Because pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and birth can be very traumatic, it is important not just to consider the physical body in need of healing, but the emotional and energetic bodies also.
The energy and emotional bodies are transformed in pregnancy and birth.
A woman’s relationship with herself, her partner, and her other children shift.
A woman’s energy body expands to bear the child, and if the release of the child is traumatic, that can cause a tearing in the energy field and make healing difficult.
In the postpartum, a mom might not have a second to get to the bathroom let alone take a shower. She will often forget to eat, and is up all hours of the night.
This marathon makes it difficult for a mother to process the birth while the demands of everyday life are so intense.
Sometimes the swirl of life persists and persists, and a woman’s needs to process birth are not addressed for month . . .or years . . . or decades.
But the body remembers and holds the trauma until the mom has the space and support to let go.
Postpartum renewal with Dr. Caroline Peterson provides a safe nest so you can process and release the trauma of pregnancy and birth with neuroemotional technique (NET) and energy work.
Scar & Adhesion Care
After having a baby, you could experience pain and dysfunction that is related to scars and adhesions.
If you had a cesarean section, you will have an abdominal scar that could pull on any structures in your body.
Remember when you have a cesarean section, after the baby is delivered, the surgeon will take the uterus out of your body to evaluate it, sew it up, and double check to be sure there were no nicks or other issues that could impact your health and well-being.
This is good to be careful.
But also, taking an organ out of the body then putting it back disrupts its relationship to all the other organs.
So, treating only the cesarean scar is never enough after a c-section.
Sometimes during a birth an episiotomy (cutting of the vaginal opening) will be necessary to help the baby come out. These cuts always heal as scars that are much more pronounced (and weaker) than when the body tears on its own. These scars will need tending, also.
Sometimes the baby will get stuck in the birth canal because of a shoulder dystocia or an acynclitic head. This, too can cause adhesions in the birth canal, and retained distortion of muscle firing patterns.
Dr. Caroline Peterson will always be looking for scars and adhesions that could be pulling on tissue and organs, then use manual hands-on therapy and castor oil packs for healing.
What is Diastasis Recti Abdominis (DRA)?
Diastasis means splitting open. A diastasis of the rectus abdominus means the muscle in the middle of your abdomen unzips. This is a very common result of pregnancy. Sometimes it can heal on its own. But many times, because mom is so focused on helping others and might not be aware of proper lifting and movement and muscle firing patterns to aid in her healing, she might be doing things that make it hard for the body to heal.
A diastasis can cause an alteration in the infrastructure of your body and impact the relationship between different organs and sections of your body that leads to incontinence, prolapse, digestive problems, and other conditions.
In addition to using the standard physical therapy model of treating diastasis recti abdominis with corseting, exercise, and movement pattern support, I also provide visceral manipulation to put the organs back in place so they won’t be adding to the pull-apart of the muscles.
