Perineal Massage - yay or nay?
By Bernadette Lack
For the majority of my career, I hated talking about perineal massage. Despite there being good evidence for it, I didn’t believe in it. I believed that the body was made for birth full stop. It didn’t need any extra help, thank you very much.
I still very much believe the body is made to birth. I also now know a lot more about how the pelvis works during birth and how the state this space is in can impact our outcomes.
Let me explain a little more….
The pelvic floor needs to contract and then lengthen 3.5 times its size in order to get out of the way as your uterus pushes your babe out (yep, it’s your uterus that pushes your babe out and no you don’t have to strain or force to get it out). This is something it is totally capable of.
However, the pelvic floor can often hold a lot of tension due to our modern ways of living. Think lack of/restricted movement, emotional stress, previous investigations and procedures that can cause adhesions and scar tissue.
Now if our neck is tight and sore, we often hold it quite still. Restricting its movement. We wouldn’t encourage it to lengthen and extend 3.5 times its size. And if we did, what do you think would happen?
Yep! You guessed it. It would most likely get more injured.
If muscles and/or connective tissue are tight, they have a higher chance of tearing when they are being asked to lengthen/stretch/perform. We know this from sports injuries.
Now what do we do to soften a tight muscle?
That’s right! We massage it and try to eliminate the cause of tension. The pelvic floor is no different. In preparing for sports events, we’d cater to our muscles needs.
Birth is a physiological event.
I now see perineal massage as a really epic way to connect with our body and prepare it for birth. There are however more ways (and much less intrusive methods) to do this than just traditional perineal massage. Over the years I’ve gone from loving a deep “oh yeah, right there, make it hurt” massage to now being more of a “hardly touch me and let my body do the work” type person.
Say what? #YoureWildB
So here is what I’ve learnt as I’ve epically aged…
The body responds to kindness a whole lot more than hard and fast. Especially our vaginas.
The body is super responsive. If it feels safe it will soften. If it feels threatened it will harden
and protect itself. Vaginas are epic at telling you to go away if they don’t like you.
The point of massage is to facilitate the body to soften and release. The masseuse facilitates
an opportunity for the body to do the real work and to keep doing it afterwards
All that stuff my yoga teachers used to go on about around the breath was right
#ItsSoPowerful
As I always say “do you”. Don’t do it, do it, do it harder or softer. Do you and what you believe in and need to do for you.
For more info on preparing your pelvic bowl for birth, head to @coreandfloorrestore on Instagram or book a consultation www.coreandfloor.com.au.