Pre-Natal Physiotherapy: Women Without Pain

A woman resembles the pillar of strength in our society, but what if she is troubled by her own body, like her hormones? Pregnancy is a very crucial phase of any woman’s life, where she has a mixed feeling of excitement, nervousness, curiosity or anxiety. Science here, in the form of antenatal physiotherapy, plays a vital role in maintaining her overall balance and strength.

A woman, who was once a girl and who used to ignore her monthly cycles just because of carelessness, may have to pay for this in her adulthood. Therefore, all girls should be aware of their physical and psychological health. Now, here’s a very important point about how physiological health can affect the psychological health of any individual, especially girls. Let’s check this: a girl with an irregular menstrual cycle with heavy bleeding is suffering from lower abdomen pain and weakness. She takes leave from her school/college for those few days. Meanwhile, she experiences anxiety due to her absence from work. She recovers from her physical condition and goes to her routine work but gets scolded due to irregularity; the anxiety has now been automatically converted into a minimal level of stress, which ultimately leads to an increase in academic pressure. This is what we call unfit psychological health, which is basically due to impaired physiological health.

This girl will someday move towards adulthood, who again will share the motherhood journey, facing the troubles, which can worsen day by day. This needs to be taken care of, as it’s never too late to get awakened.

Hormones are the roots of all our physiological and psychological conditions. The major hormones in a female's body, FSH & LH, are the major governing centres for any female’s health. If we can’t change them, we can definitely monitor them and modify their functions by changing our daily routines and increasing our metabolism.

Every female body is made in such a way that she can modify her hormones to a greater extent by changing daily activities, which may not only affect the metabolism but will also definitely change her health conditions. Similarly, a pregnant mother can also make remarkable changes to her body, leading to a healthy and fit pregnancy.

What is Pre-Natal Physiotherapy: The prenatal period is the duration of pregnancy, from conception till the birth of the baby. The physiotherapy sessions scheduled during this period to provide ease and comfort in the complete gestation period, with faster recovery of the mother, are known as prenatal physiotherapy. This comprises multiple planned sessions for mothers and sometimes for couples, too. The sessions for the couples are planned to teach would-be fathers to take care of the pregnant female, to cope with some complications occurring during the pregnancy and to teach good parenting for the newborn babies. The pregnant woman learns how to perform daily activities with a growing belly. The various sleepless nights, discomforts, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, heaviness and multiple pains in different parts of the body can all be settled down with the help of prenatal physiotherapy.

Not only during pregnancy, but physiotherapy will help in faster recovery from any type of delivery, whether it may be a normal or caesarean section. Although physiotherapy in the pre-natal phase leads to a normal, comfortable pregnancy period, early timely delivery, faster recovery and boosting the strength and metabolism of a woman.

How Pre-Natal Physiotherapy is Planned: These sessions start from the second trimester, the 4th month of pregnancy till the start of labour. Such sessions planned during the time of labour are considered separate sessions and planned exercises. Pre-natal physiotherapy sessions are also known as antenatal physiotherapy, which comprises different exercises suitable for the patient’s body. The sessions are initially taken on alternate days weekly for an hour. All sessions have separate exercise regimes with proper diet counselling, breathing exercises, meditation and relaxation phases. Exercises vary patient to patient and as per the requirement, noting proper assessments done before each session. Patients are monitored with their vitals like blood pressure, blood sugar level, heart rate and respiration before and after the exercise sessions. Regular follow-ups by gynaecologists for antenatal checkups are also monitored. The couples’ sessions are also being planned at the end of the trimester to provide proper counselling to the parents.

Physiotherapy at the Time of Labour: Obstetrics physiotherapy at the time of labour is nowadays considered normal and is trending a lot just to get easy, early and faster delivery naturally and with minimal labour pain. All prenatal sessions, along with obstetrics physiotherapy, help support minimal pain or painless labour during the pregnancy. The patient gets less exhausted and ultimately the foetus (baby inside the womb) gets appropriate oxygen inside the womb, which saves the baby from foetal distress. Painless or minimal pain is mostly the result of proper exercises during labour, some dietary inclusions to induce labour, reducing panic situations, music therapy and pain control modalities at the time the patient gets admitted to the hospital for labour. Physiotherapy during labour is fruitful only when there are clear signs of normal labour without any high-risk complications. The physiotherapist should take prior consent from the gynaecologist before taking the case. All gynaecologists receive proper support from the physiotherapists for the sessions.

Dr Anshul Garhpale is a pre-and post-natal, birthing & labour specialist