Urinary retention is a post birth complication that you rarely hear about but is quite common (about 10%) (1). If not picked up, it can have devastating and sometimes permanent effects on your bladder. What are the signs and treatments?

What is post partum urinary retention?

Post partum urinary retention (PPUR) is defined as the inability to urinate within 6 hours of giving birth. More clinically it is defined as more than 150 ml of urine being left behind in the bladder after urinating. If your bladder does not expel the urine your bladder will stretch. If it stretches too much and left untreated this can lead to sometimes irreversible bladder muscle and nerve damage, which could mean permanent catheter use to urinate. It can resolve spontaneously but can persist for months. Immediate diagnosis and management is vital.

This blog shows that running around after our babies and keeping the house in some resemblance of order can clock up 10 000 steps per day.

My husband congratulated me today. Our baby started her first day of school this week. It is an end of an era. We have successfully reared our child from womb to school. The major goals achieved in this time were: sleeping through the night, learning to walk, run and skip, talk with good manners, use the toilet, make simple meals and learn to recognise letters and numbers.

The end of the year allows people to reflect on the year that was. What did we achieve, what did we not and what are our goals for the new year? Full of energy, drive and positivity for the future, full of excitement for the festive season. However this year has been different. With COVID19 devastating the world in 2020, I have more feelings of an exhausted reaching for the finish line, surviving a biological war, dreaming of 2021 to come as quickly as possible. Instead of making new years resolutions I feel like reflecting back on the lessons learnt, and search for the positives to come from this global pandemic.

Parenting is always challenging but 2020 has been a whole new ball game. I send out my love to the mothers who had babies this year, especially if it was your first. Mother’s groups providing support from other mothers and nurses, were cancelled due to COVID 19. Then the lock downs prevented family and friends from visiting and providing vital help would have made those first months really tough! When you are stuck at home with children with or without COVID 19 what can you do to instantly relieve some of that stress?!

I was blowing up balloons for my daughter’s party the other day and felt I might be giving myself a pelvic organ prolapse! Pelvic organ prolapse is one of the most common health problems in Australia. 75% of women develop a pelvic organ prolapse during their lifetime! One in three will have a prolapse go to the entrance of the vagina or externally. Approximately 1 in 9 will have surgery for their prolapse however recurrence rates following surgery can be as high as 67% in the first year if there is co-existing pelvic floor muscle avulsion (ripping the muscle off the pubic bone)! (1). So surgery may not always be the best option. How can physiotherapy help?

At last Spring is here! The warmth and sweet smell of flowers has returned to the air and I am most grateful. 2020 has been a long hard year for everyone which I don’t think has faired well for anyone’s mental or physical health. My clothes don’t fit me as well, I have hidden the scales, I have noticed grey hairs for the first time and my GP has just told me my blood pressure has risen! I am blaming this all on Covid19 and the wine and cheese we have used to compensate.

One thing I have not compromised on though is exercise. I have prioritised it over many other things and I am perfectly fine with this. It keeps me sane and able to deal with what ever life throws at me. In lockdown, I would let our daughter watch a movie while I thrashed out my online aerobics and we would regularly go for a walk in nature. Now that she is back at school, I am out walking daily in the Adelaide Hills. I have walked our local track for years but this year there has been exponential growth in bush walkers. Why?

This blog talks about how most of us don’t breath properly, how this can cause back and neck pain and how we can fix it.

There is so much pressure on us to look good! We have adopted all these techniques to appear skinnier, like poking out our chin to avoid a double chin, standing with one leg behind us and poking out the front hip to appear skinnier but curvaceous. dropping our hips as we walk to walk like a model and now I have noticed we don’t even breath properly to avoid our stomachs protruding!! All of these examples will contribute to neck, back and pelvic pain. Today I am going to talk about the later; how shallow breathing can cause neck and back pain and how we can avoid it.

Read this revolutionary blog about a new and potentially easier way to strengthen your pelvic floor!

In my pre Mummy days I loved being entranced by DJs with the base pounding through my body, but when a saxophonist accompanied them I transcended to another place. Along with one day learning to play the decks, I have always wanted to learn to play the saxophone. More recently I have been searching for ways to combat my baby brain and so thought learning the sax would be the perfect solution. However, I was concerned that it might have tragic consequences for my pelvic floor. I thought all that downward pressure from trying to get a note out would stretch my pelvic floor muscles and fascia, leaving me with less than desirable incontinence!

You don’t know how happy I am that what I felt was the opposite! Not only did my brain feel more switched on after a lesson, my pelvic floor did too! Noticeably so. I was concentrating so hard on all the instructions in my first lesson that I did not give one thought to my pelvic floor. Yet when I drove home I did some pelvic floor contractions and noticed they were SO much stronger. After just one lesson!

Stress urinary incontinence is common with pregnancy and after vaginal births. This blog breaks down the causes and treatments available.

Stress urinary incontinence is common in pregnant women (54.3%) (1) and after delivering babies vaginally, especially if they are large babies or your need instruments to assist delivery. This blog is going to cover a complicated but very relevant topic for Mums: stress urinary incontinence (SUI). It still challenges us as medical professionals, as to the best ways to treat it. In this blog we will examine the potential causes of SUI and thus the relevant treatment options available. I will try to make it as easy as possible to understand but it is a difficult topic so read it and then approach a Women’s Health Physiotherapist or Gynaecologist with your equipped knowledge to explain and explore it further.

Read my friends heart breaking story of a lifetime of misunderstood and crippling endometriosis pain and how she finally got relief at 41 with a hysterectomy. This blog talks about painful periods, their possible causes and the treatment options available.

“I've always had incredibly painful periods, right from my very first one. I remember always feeling dizzy and faint as well as being in so much pain across my back and abdomen. It was like I had hot pokers attacking me from the insides - the pain was unreal!

I also remember the doctors never really took my pain seriously. But even with strong pain killers I would feel like I'd been run over by a truck. I'd be in so much pain, and feel so dizzy and tired, that I could hardly function. For a while, I took the contraceptive pill and that helped, but after a few years I started to get migraines from the pill as well. 

Trampolines are a wonderful activity to help us all survive being restricted to our homes during this Corona virus epidemic. Read about the many health benefits, but also the risk of injuries, and the potential for stress incontinence!

I have read this book recently, “The land before avocado” (1) which compares Australia in the 1960/ 70s to now. It reminded me that the food was very limited and bland compared to now. Some may be old enough to remember that even our Mum’s attempt at exotic Chinese honey chicken was an epic fail. Coffee, if available at all, was only instant. In addition to this, interesting statistics were provided to prove that as well as crime rates being higher back in the 1970s compared to now, (contrary to what the media would have you believe), so were the dangers of children seriously hurting themselves. Parents just let their children disappear to entertain themselves for the day. Some argue that the helicopter parenting today will create children who will not have the courage or skills to be independent, but research proves at least they will be alive to try!

This blog is about how as Mummies we can best help our babies, our families and ourselves survive the Coronavirus and its many social, psychological and physical impacts.

How do I explain to my 3 year old daughter that is to turn 4 this week that she is not going to be having her Frozen birthday party that we had been planning for months? How do I explain that she will not be able to see her family and most importantly her Daddy on her birthday? Her Daddy safely got back into Australia recently but we decided to quarantine him in a Airbnb because it would be impossible for our daughter to self isolate from him. We have decided to self isolate from school and work too to try and help flatten the curve. He has now got Covid19, but thankfully has mild symptoms.

It is unbelievable the devastating effects it is having on the world economy, including our physiotherapy practices and home finances. Medical and political experts are trying to formulate the best advice with this unknown virus, and the advice is changing day to day. Even the elderly ladies in the spartan supermarkets said they have never seen anything like this in their lives. It is surreal, it is scary and it going to affect us all in some way. I am normally a very optimistic and happy person but even I have been affected by the anxiety of it all.

As Mummies and parents we have to remain strong and put on a brave face for our children’s wellbeing. So this blog is about how we manage this Coronavirus in terms of explaining it to our children, keeping our families safe and sane and keeping our children entertained if we have to self isolate.

The biggest fear most women with Endometriosis have is whether they will be able to have a baby. This blog details the risks, how endometriosis affects fertility and how to increase your chances of having a baby.

Many women with endometriosis will become pregnant normally. Others will be able to conceive normally after surgery to remove the endometriosis. Some women may require IVF as well as expert surgery to become pregnant. Some sadly are unable to have a baby at all (1).

Around 3 to 4 in every 10 women with endometriosis have difficulty becoming pregnant. Most women with endometriosis are not infertile. The more severe the endometriosis is, the more likely it is that there will be fertility problems (1).

Read this blog to find out how you can use swimming to still manage exercise with your bubba in the heat of Summer.

How can one 16kg almost 4 year old eat so much?! When she was a baby she was on the 5th percentile and I worried how to fatten her up. Now she has those full of collagen, pudgy cheeks, hands and thighs that I love to squeeze. When she was two with few words, her most used was “more” and now it is a more expressive “I am still hungry”. She is a machine but still a normal weight (with a slightly rotund stomach).

Happy new year! As a parent it is even more important than ever to reflect of how we have performed over the year. Mummies can be too hard on themselves so be proud and take this time to celebrate how wonderful you are.

And just like that 2019 and another decade is almost over. We hope that you have had the most magical year with your family, watching your baby/ babies grow and explore this beautiful world of ours. The end of the year is a time for reflection; what have we achieved, what have we not and what can we improve on for next year. As a Mummy I think it is more important than ever to check in to see how we are doing as parents and to make sure we are making the most of these precious years with our babies.

Painful sex is common for ladies with endometriosis. Read this blog to find out why and what you and health professionals can do to help.

Pain with sexual penetration (dyspareunia) can be caused if there are inflamed endometrial lesions near the vagina. Certain sexual positions will be more painful depending on where the lesions are. If lesions are widespread around the vagina all positions may be painful.

In a series of 4 blogs I am going to talk about Endometriosis: signs, symptoms and treatment options, Endometriosis and chances of having a baby, Painful sex and endometriosis and lastly Hysterectomy as a treatment for endometriosis.

What are the signs and symptoms of endometriosis?

Endometriosis has been causing women severe pelvic pain for eternity and medical professionals have not been able to tell them why. Even today, an average of 8 years passes before their symptoms are diagnosed! It is still poorly understood but knowledge and good management has rapidly advanced in more recent years. Endometriosis is such a complex beast with many possible presentations. It can not only cause pelvic pain and painful periods but can also low back pain, pain with intercourse, mood disturbances, tiredness, bloating, changing bowel motions, bowel pain, painful bladder syndrome, migraines and difficulty conceiving!

Read this blog to work how to avoid or alleviate knee pain caused by all the squatting and lifting we do as Mummies.

Does parenting hurt every part of your body?! As a 40 year old Mum who is more unfit than ever my knee pain has started to return. I keep questioning my age as a contributor but I think it is much more due to my strength and fitness levels. When ever I do lots of regular hill walking or in my very distant past as a rower I am fit, strong and I have no knee pain. Take away my leg and butt strength and the pain returns. So simple!

In my defence and to all the other mothers and fathers that hear me, we are probably squatting much more than we did in our previous lives as free agents. We are squatting to pick up babies from the floor, chairs, cars, lifting prams out of the car and picking up the countless toys! Read this blog on how to lift our babies and exercise without getting knee pain.

Gestational diabetes has affected several people I know. Read how to prevent this condition that can severely detriment the health of your baby and yourself now and in the future.

Gestational diabetes (GDM) increases the risk of premature birth, neonatal death, prolonged jaundice and respiratory distress in the babies. In the future it can increase the risk of the child being obese and type II DM. It can increase the risk of the mother having a caesarean section, pre-eclampsia, hypertension, GDM in future pregnancies (66%) or type II DM (up to 63% within 5-10 years (Shand et al 2008). GDM increases the risk of premature birth, neonatal death, prolonged jaundice and respiratory distress in the babies.

Misaki has not made it on to the cover of Vogue Baby but she would be if I was the editor. This blog is about how toddlers have perfect posture, flexibility and manual handling skills. How do we prevent our babies from morphing into the slumped, stiff and sore adults and sadly now the adolescents I treat today? Please read and learn from your toddler.