Holistic Pelvic Care for Postpartum Healing
With a lack of sufficient trauma-informed postpartum care for women, holistic pelvic care offers a nurturing and healing touch therapy addressing the physical and emotional needs of women following childbirth in a gentle and respectful manner. This approach acknowledges the significance of embodied touch therapy as a vital step in the postpartum healing journey and offers benefits for all women.
This therapeutic type of bodywork is tailored to provide comfort, healing, and support in your recovery and can be received if you are ready from six weeks postpartum. If you're hesitant about internal bodywork, there are gentle alternatives such as external energetic work and visualisation exercises that can offer relief. Exploring these options at any point after giving birth can bring calm to your mind and help you ease into motherhood.
By combining embodied touch and breathwork the intricate web of tissues within the pelvis can realign and rebalance. Personalised trauma-informed pelvic care is offered at your body’s pace to release any associated pain patterns and mobilise scar tissue from vaginal tears, episiotomies, and c-sections that might be affecting your recovery.
Treatment can help resolve symptoms such as pelvic pain, painful penetration, painful sex, urine leakage, discomfort, or pelvic muscle weakness, low libido (sex drive), decreased sensation, and an inability to achieve orgasm. If you've had a caesarean birth, holistic pelvic care and fascia work can support the healing of the tissues by breaking down adhesions and preventing a build-up of scar tissue.
Internal work can also address imbalances in the pelvic bowl caused by prolonged vaginal birth attempts or strong emotions like fear, anger, or anxiety experienced during your birth or the emotional impact of having a caesarean birth, especially if a vaginal birth was what you had hoped for.
For anyone who has had experiences a difficult birth, this care can help restore balance to the pelvic area and aid in their recovery, bringing calm and realignment to their body and spirit. The bodywork and breathwork techniques restore a healthy flow of blood, nerve, and energy to the pelvic floor.
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The initial session, which lasts 1 hour and 30 minutes, is all about understanding your unique medical history and treatment goals. It's a safe space for you to ask any questions or share concerns, and we'll even go over the female anatomy and muscles together. During the pelvic evaluation, we’ll gently assess your pelvic floor strength, muscle imbalances, and any chronic tension patterns. Quite often women have never received touched in this therapeutic, embodied way, my approach is always respectful and considerate, incorporating gentle internal vaginal massage, myofascial and trigger point release, as well as breathwork and visualisation techniques to promote balance and well-being in your pelvic area. We'll work together to assess your pelvic floor muscles while you perform Kegel exercises, and I'll use manual therapy with a lubricated, gloved digit in the vaginal canal. Your comfort is always my top priority, so I adjust the pressure based on your body's response. The inter-vaginal work is designed to increase blood flow to your pelvic organs, improve the alignment and function of your uterus and ovaries, and bring balance and awareness to your pelvic organs. At the end of each session, I'll provide guidance for self-care, because your well-being extends beyond our time together.
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Follow-up sessions are for 1 hour and begin with a brief re-assessment and then focus primarily on treatment. Follow-up sessions can be quite close together for example if you are working to strengthen the pelvic space after childbirth, heal scar tissue or receive a programme of care for urinary leakage. It may then be suggested that women attend either every 3, 6 or 12 months for maintenance/preventative treatments. Each session ends with a review of pelvic self-care.
Holistic Pelvic Care
“Gemma's kindly, professional and knowledgeable approach has helped me enormously. Through releasing old episiotomy scar tissue I have been able to reconnect with long lost sensation, build muscle strength and reverse a prolapse. The effects in my life of these changes have been profound. I am deeply grateful to her. It is a gift to have someone of Gemma's skill, sensitivity and specialism in Norfolk”.
L.T
