Kimberly Ann Johnson's Blog

Reproductive Rights in a Post Roe Era

No Description

This is a replay recording from the Reproductive Rights follow up call with Kimberly Ann Johnson on July 28th, 2022.

 

I recently sat down with The goop Podcast talk about the healing potential within our bodies.

On this podcast, we talk about a few things you might not have heard from me before:Source regulationSound + music as nervous system tools

 

 We also chatted about many things that you have heard me teach about:“me” versus “we” problemswhy not to get down on the “fight” or “flight” system– it’s not your enemysome of the key teachings from my book Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use it for Good

 

You can find the episode wherever you listen to podcasts.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

I can’t separate sex work from soul work. For me the essence of each of us, our soul, reveals itself at the thresholds, the thresholds of birth, sex and death. Sometimes the death is a metaphorical one- a dark night of the soul, our personal version of Innana’s descent. Birth, those can be metaphorical too. Sex is the one of this trilogy that is the most available to us, the most tangible. In some ways, sex is the one that is most in our control. The one, that if tended to, can give us the most frequent insights, signposts, and revelations.

Most people are dissatisfied or mystified by sex because they too know this, but they don’t know how to get to these transformative zones. Instead they are trapped in conversations about how many times a week they are doing it, or if they have multiple orgasms, or how they do it and pretend to love it just so they don’t have to do it more. Or how they won’t ask for what they really want because then their partner will get the “wrong” idea and think it needs to lead to something, that they don’t want it to lead to.

They are trapped in porn echos even if they have never watched porn, thinking their body needs to look some way, imagining that their partner too thinks that or wants some position, some sound, some WAY that sex is supposed to be hot and sexy.

And before you know it is a performative circus, a showdown of false egos and false displays, addictive yet rarely satiating. It is a merry-go-round of “I thought YOU liked that.” Or “I hope HE likes that.”  Or “I hope she thinks I’m good.” None of this has anything to do with connection. And by connection I don’t mean commitment.

By connection, I mean people present in their bodies, aware of where they are in time and space, engaging in something that feels real, digestible and interesting, if not erotic, in that moment.

And this is all-important, like SAVE THE PLANET important. Biodiversity is at stake. HUMAN biodiversity. If we slow down, we open ourselves to organic connection that is the antidote to depression, to isolation, to loneliness, to confusion. If we slow down, and we listen and then we courageously state that desire, we cross the wires of what is supposed to be “good” to be “acceptable,” we transgress. Ooooooh, I love that word transgression. We reject the narrow story that we are sold, and we live into the possibility of a totally unique life that our soul’s message dictates.

Drop all of the scripts you’ve learned- women want x, men want z. Bodies that look x are sexier. People who have x are this way. Drop into your power center. Bite into it, and express from there. You might find yourself making odd requests. Then good for you, you’ve crossed a threshold to originality that is the nexus for genuine connection that looks nothing like what you have been shown or what you might have imagined. Spontaneous expression. A form of enlightenment.

Become fluent in Sexspeak, and you also become fluent in Birthspeak and Deathspeak. You tap into the root source of who you are, and you become a trusted wise one. First, most importantly you trust yourself, the language of your own body. Deeply. You know her. You know her ebbs and flows. You understand that she wants and you want different flavors at different times. Then you become the grounded magnet that synchs up the rhythms of those who are around you. You become an oracle of that Truth. Your beloved body, your beloved sex becomes the oracle you’ve been waiting for and the world has been waiting for.

Follow @magamamas for deeper wisdom

When it comes to your post-birth nether regions, don’t believe everything you hear—that is, if you’ve heard anything at all! Whether your baby was born vaginally or via cesarean, it is common to have swelling, pain, and possibly even bruising in your pelvic floor, vulva and/or vagina in the first week or two after you give birth. But what happens when weeks and months after, that vaginal pain or discomfort remains? While pelvic pain after childbirth is common, it is not normal. At the six week postpartum visit, most care providers are just looking to see that there are no open wounds. They don’t evaluate scar tissue, tissue resiliency, or muscle tone. So if when you got the green light for sex and exercise, you felt anywhere from a bit lost to radically unprepared for either, you are not alone.

In countries like France and Holland, all new moms receive in-home post-birth care that includes postural rehabilitation, pelvic floor reconnection and recovery support. Doesn’t that make so much sense? Here in the US, our one brief six-week check-up is often the full extent of our postpartum care. If we are lucky, we are given a mental health screening. But what is left out is real talk about how the birth went both physically and emotionally, and how our body is functioning. Birth injuries can make us feel depressed. But anti-depressants won’t help if the source of your feelings is that your body is not functioning like it did before.

I can tell you from experience that searing low back pain, the sense that your organs are going to just fall on the floor and you can’t do anything about it, going to the bathroom in your pants when you didn’t even feel an urge to go is all very depressing. I am also here to tell you that I recovered fully from all of those symptoms I listed without surgery.

You do not have to live with the discomfort of having to go pee all the time or leaking when you sneeze. You do not have to live with burning, stinging, or tearing sensations during sex. You do not have to live with the feeling of bulges where they shouldn’t be or feel like you are sitting on an egg. You do not have to get used to the feeling that your organs might just slip out onto the floor. You also don’t have to acclimate, tolerate, or decide that any of these things are things you just have to live with from now on. While some of these conditions may be common, they are not normal! To receive more care, we often have to strongly advocate for ourselves. And even then, many women report that their care providers continually tell them everything is fine, even when it doesn’t feel fine.

If you are feeling insecure, uncomfortable, or are in pain “down there” after birth, I strongly urge you – ok, I’ll beg you – to seek out pelvic floor physical therapy, holistic pelvic care or a scar tissue remediation practitioner. Next month, I’ll address WHY these things happen to our vagina. Until next time…

PART 1

A sweet young woman walks into my office flashing a bright, straight smile. She sits down on the table across from me, leans ways in, gasps a quick inhale, and tells me the secret she’s been storing up to tell me for months, if not years, all in one breath. “I’veneverhadanorgasm.”

This furtive revelation is one of the most common I encounter in my conversations with women as a Sexological Bodyworker. Each woman who’s brave enough to come and see me and “confess,” imagines there is something wrong with her. She imagines she is the only one; all her girlfriends have orgasms, even vaginal ones! It looks easy to everyone else. What is the big problem? And it’s no wonder women feel this way.

Everywhere you look is more pressure to have orgasms. We already know Cosmo thinks we need to have them to make every man want us. Doctors are prescribing orgasms for all of their health benefits- from a stronger heart to a supple pelvic floor to depression even. And even Tantra and sex educators jump on the bandwagon touting spiritual realization with the development of sexual mastery, gymnastics, and you guessed it… Orgasms.

Turns out the more we narrow our focus, the more we stare at the Holy Grail of orgasm, the more we TRY TRY TRY, the less likely it is that we will have the experience we are searching for.

Roll with me here.

When I was 19, without any prior experience, I jumped off a proverbial cliff and went to a 10-day silent meditation retreat. During this experience of 14 hours a day of sitting absolutely still, and then not talking or looking at anyone, I became convinced that my mind would never obey and quiet down. I became so distraught by my unruly monkey mind, which one day played “my anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hon” on repeat for every sitting session, that I requested to talk to one of the teachers. (You were allowed to talk at a given time of day to ask a life or meditation question to the teacher.) It appeared that everyone else was sitting very still with no problem at all. Why was it so hard for ME?

I explained to the Indian-version of George Clooney, my teacher who later died of brain cancer without even knowing he was sick due to his acute focus on sensation rather than labeling, that I was hopeless. My mind simply would not be quiet.

George Clooney: “How long have you been meditating?”

Me: “6 months.”

GC: Insert internal chuckle. “When you plant a seed, do you stare at the ground every day all day until the plant grows?”

Me, serious, this feels like life and death, or insanity: “no.”

GC: “Well sometimes you have to just plant the seeds and trust that they will grow. You choose the soil well. You give the plant the water and sunlight it needs. But you cannot control how the plant grows. You leave it.”

What this proverb has to do with orgasm is that if we are in relentless pursuit of a given feeling or outcome, in my case the freedom I imagined would come with a calm mind, and in the case of many women I work with, the imagined joy or pleasure or freedom that would come with an orgasm, we miss the experience itself. All of the curiosity is erased by a fixed driving mindset toward the destiny a predetermined experience. We miss the journey.

Our ability to experience what IS happening is eclipsed by what is NOT happening.

I am not undermining the frustration that many women feel about wanting so badly to feel something they imagine is so easy for everyone else. Or the desire to experience the kind of letting go or ‘little death’ (as the French call “orgasm”) that intimates a certain flavor of reckless abandon and freedom. And we all are certainly entitled to want what we want. I just don’t think vision boards or bucket list are the chosen approach here.

I am suggesting that if we train our minds to focus on what IS happening in the moment if we train our bodies to track what we DO like, what DOES feel good, without biting for something out in front of us, it is much more likely to happen. And when you have taken your focus to a place where touch feels exquisite, where a smell is intoxicating, where the sound of a voice sends an undulation through your spine, your body begins to trust you. And when you take your eye off the prize, something else starts to happen. You learn to follow the thread of the present moment, to be truly present in yourself and your own experience. That present moment experience is not always pleasant and shiny, but neither is an orgasm. Orgasm is as wide as the horizon. We give it names, like “clitoral” orgasm or “vaginal orgasm” (btw, the clitoris extends deep into the vagina). Well every little millimeter of the clit, external and internal, is climactic and orgasmic.

When we learn to ride the present moment, we open up the possibility for a repertoire of experience beyond what we could fit into the label of the word “orgasm.” Orgasm is not one thing. It cannot be defined by one part of the body. Every single cell of our body has orgasmic potential. It may not, probably won’t look like how we have seen it portrayed.

And when women come to me because they want to have an orgasm already, I usually find that they also want more connected sex, more varied sex, more spiritual sex. I believe the spontaneous creative connection is what they are looking for, and orgasm is often an outcome.

THE ELUSIVE BIG “O”- PART 2

Ok, great, so now you’re on board.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the journey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the present moment. BUT I STILL WANT TO HAVE AN ORGASM.

First, let’s get a few things straight. We all need a sex re-education. Imagine what it would feel like to live in a world without gravity. It’s pretty hard too since we are not astronauts. That’s what it’s like to imagine a world without sexual shame. Shame is the shroud and overlay of most of our sexual “education” in this culture. So please don’t feel bad if you never knew any of what I am about to share. And if you feel angry, you’re not alone. We should be taught these things- all of us, of all genders. The good thing is that once you know, you can share the knowledge. Your sex life has the potential to open in new directions, and as your self-understanding grows that will extend to your friends, partners and eventually children!

Climax versus orgasm

When most people talk about orgasm, they are referring to climax. In the sex world, a climax is referred to as a “genital sneeze.” A climax is what happens when you use a vibrator for 30 seconds to 5 minutes and hit a sharp peak and drop. A climax is usually local to the genitals. Orgasm is life force energy that free flows and surges throughout your entire body. We could refer to entering into an orgasmic state where the feeling of warm golden energy runs through the meridians and continues to even outside of sexual interaction. Orgasm can happen with or without climax.

How Female Arousal Works

What is portrayed to us in films and movies is a male arousal trajectory. Even if you watch porn of women masturbating, they are imitating a male arousal pattern. This pattern looks like starting slow, and then accelerating, and going faster and faster until there is a peak and a scream and then a sharp drop-off. Both men and women see this imagery and then our behavior is affected by it. We think that being “good at sex” or “hot sex” means to be able to give it or take it hard and fast. Really, that kind of sex is just one flavor of many different possible flavors. It’s cock-centered and focused on endorphin release and performance. I’m not saying it’s a bad flavor, just that it’s the dominant one and it robs us of having a rich, varied and mutually pleasurable intimate life, where orgasm can happen effortlessly. Female arousal is wavelike, with ebbs and flows, as it climbs and builds.

How long it takes for us to get aroused is also different from men to women. Typical male arousal, which is defined by full engorgement of genital erectile tissue (soft to hard) can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 ½ minutes, and of course much longer or not at all. As women, we have just as much erectile tissue as men do! Yet for women, full arousal (engorgement of all the erectile tissue) takes 35 to 45 MINUTES. Yes! You read that right. Many women I work with haven’t experienced penetration with full arousal. Sex educators like Sheri Winston, the author of Women’s Anatomy of Arousal suggest that a woman should never be penetrated until she is fully aroused and lubricated and begging to be entered. That’s definitely not the common path we see followed in television and film! It also explains why so many women find orgasm elusive when the sex we are taught is not based on how our biology and physiology work.

Two Words We Could Do Without: Foreplay and Finishing

Many women sheepishly confess to me that the love “foreplay.” They are embarrassed because it seems like something extra that they shouldn’t need. They should be able to just get right to it. I want to say, “of COURSE you like foreplay.” Again in this scenario, male pleasure and male anatomy patterns are viewed as the norm. I don’t like the word “foreplay” because it means before, and intimates that everything leading up to the BIG EVENT is somehow less important than the part that really matters- all-hallowed penetration. So-called foreplay is every bit as important as every other part of being intimate with yourself or someone else.

I have never heard a woman say, “he doesn’t wait until I finish.” But I hear women say all the time, “I lay there while he finishes.” I want to say, “WHAT is he FINISHING?”

To deepen connection, and experience heightened states of connection, and yes, orgasm, we need to take climax off the table for both men and women. I know that sounds like a contradiction. But we need to retrain ourselves that every interaction isn’t a race to the finish line of getting one another off. Every interaction is another chance at deeper attunement, self-discovery, and access to our unconscious. From that place, we can start to experience sensations, emotions, and altered states that were previously inaccessible. We can’t get there when we are in the common tally-taking script: “you go down on me, I go down on you, you come, I come.”

Surrender

The fast and furious orgasms we are used to seeing portray a lot of activation and revving up. To experience orgasm, we also have to be able to relax, to let go, and to allow charge dissipate through our bodies. If we only focus on the revving up, we will either experience a sharp drop or a numbing of sensation rather than a deepening and broadening one.

Our nervous systems are complex. In a simplified way, you can think of our nervous system as having two branches – an accelerator, the sympathetic nervous system, and a brake, the parasympathetic nervous system. These branches of our nervous system are coordinating all the time so that we can live our lives and have cycles of activity and rest. We become habituated in certain ways that they work. Because modern life demands high performance, our sympathetic nervous systems are often in overdrive (adrenal fatigue, burnout, anxiety). Self-care has become such a popular concept because especially as women, we need to be able to downregulate to truly rest. If our nervous system does not know how to rest, orgasm becomes more elusive. And that’s why TRYING harder, or DOING more, or RUBBING faster won’t work. What will work is incorporating practices like savasana, meditation, or even daily rest in cycles- like laying down or going for a walk 5-10 minutes of every 90-minute activity/work cycle.

The more disconnected and mind-driven we are in the rest of our lives, the more difficult it is to shift into sexy time or intimate space. The more connected we stay to our “felt sense” and our “intuition” throughout the day, the smoother transition into sexual space, and the closer we are at all times to an orgasmic state.

Follow @magamamas for deeper wisdom

Everyone knows that I am a champion of women in the post-partum period. And so, when the NY Times last week published an article on maternal mental health, many friends and colleagues flooded my inbox with the links to the articles and the responses. They imagined that I would be thrilled by the publicity that women’s mental health was receiving, because part of my mission is to shed light on the post-partum period and the unique traits of this part of a woman’s journey.

However as I read the article, I became increasingly uncomfortable with what I see as a very narrow lens through which we view both “health” and “mental health.” Here is a snippet of the opening of the article:

Postpartum depression isn’t always postpartum. It isn’t even always depression. A fast-growing body of research is changing the very definition of maternal mental illness, showing that it is more common and varied than previously thought…  Recent studies also show that the range of disorders women face is wider than previously thought. In the year after giving birth, studies suggest, at least one in eight and as many as one in five women develop symptoms of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder or a combination. 

There is a long history of pathologizing women’s mental health (hysteria, Freud, etc). It is much more challenging to confront how our society is structured that does or doesn’t support women’s mental health.  In other words, what is the context and external environment that is supporting these symptoms and experiences? Women’s mental health is actually at the crux of a health society, so that we can raise healthy children, and have healthy relationships. It behooves us to look closely. Legitimizing that women’s mental health is important is a first step, but I question if labeling and medicating women for post-partum depression goes very far in resolving a far-reaching community and systems problem.

Here is me dreaming…

What we need is support for new mothers. On a systemic level, let’s start with extended maternity and paternity leave- mothers and fathers supported in parenting. Women receive weekly visits from a post-partum doula and a holistic pelvic health care specialist to help with pelvic floor or abdominal healing and re-education. Doctors will tell women to rest for the first 30 days and shelter their new baby.

Starting as early as 7th grade health class, girls would learn about a woman’s life cycle, and how to surf its waves. As part of that, girls would learn that in the post-partum period, they need to rely on their sisters, mothers, aunts, and friend-family. In turn, they will also need to support their women family members when they have new babies. They will learn about the mineral-rich whole foods that are especially important during the first 40 days, and practice making them. Women will learn how to shelter each other, so that mothers can care for their new babies.

Doula training will be an elective in high school, because really doula training is woman training. Being around birth and its transformative power brings us closer to the essence of who we are as women, even if we never want to have children, we hold the power to birth.

We will sit again in circle and hear each others’ stories. We have to know and hear and feel what our sisters and mothers and grandmothers and daughters have passed through and survived. This isn’t some granola hippie thing. This is practical! We need to know if our mother had pelvic floor surgery repair after 3 kids (like mine did). We need to hear about the car accident after being home from the hospital for a week. We need to know about how wonderful it was to sleep in a separate bedroom from our husband for a month, or how wonderful our partner was in sharing duties. We need to be open and honest about the nitty-gritty of motherhood.

What are your dreams for new mothers? Please comment and contribute to the future of our sisters and daughters!

Rant alert.

Each week women come into my office with a troubling problem that their doctor, midwife or even physical therapist has told them is normal.

I am here to tell you that:

Wetting your pants is not normal. Ever. Not if you just had a baby. Not if you are doing Crossfit. Not if you are walking on the beach. Not if you sneeze. Not if you are pregnant. If you are wetting your pants, there could be a few causes. The main ones are each that your pelvic floor muscles are too strong and tight or too weak and lax.

“Urinary incontinence,” the technical term for “leaking” or “wetting your pants” is common however. You don’t need to panic or feel bad. Many women experience less bladder control during pregnancy and birth. It is not a life sentence or an inevitability.

Seeing your organs from your vaginal opening is not normal. If, in any position, you can see your cervix, your bladder or bulging from your rectum into your vaginal opening, this is not normal. If you have to manually push your organs back up and in, that’s also not normal.

These are all signs of organ prolapse. Unfortunately, because many doctors don’t know what to do about organ prolapse, they tell many women that it is normal. Many women avoid sex, feel unsettled and sad about the state of their lady bits, and generally confused by the disconnect by what they are feeling and what their health care provider is reflecting back to them. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Pain during sex or avoiding sex is also not normal. Total aversion towards sex, pain upon penetration, or pain internally is not normal. “Low libido” is a term that seems to define a fixed thing, but actually refers to a whole combination of factors that could contribute to feeling what you might throw into the category of “low libido.”

All of these are common. There are many reasons you may experience pain during sex, including lack of lubrication (nursing requires a lot of moistening), lack of sufficient arousal time, lack of emotional connection, scar tissue that burns or is pulling the pelvic muscle tissue in different directions. “Low libido” is a term that seems to define a fixed thing, but actually refers to a whole combination of factors that could contribute to feeling what you might throw into the category of “low libido.” Aversion towards sex may be the visceral fear of returning to the area that had to completely reshape, resounding echoes of birth trauma, a changed view of what you want out of sex and relationship currently or physical birth injury that affects your relationship to your body.

The main reason to understand that these things are common but not normal is so that you can GET SOME HELP. If we see them as normal, that basically infers that we need to suck it up and live with it. When we understand that it is common, but not at all optimal functionally, we can do something about it!

SO, What can you do about it?

Healing is multi-faceted and individual, so I cannot give you one answer that fits for every woman. However, here are a few starting points.

1. If you haven’t already, explore yourself in a hand mirror. We often have a distorted image of what we look like, because of how we feel. Really look at your vulva, and see how it is. Allow for the feelings that come up. There may be real grief, surprise, or even relief. This will take everything out of the realm of imagination and allow you to see things as they really are.

2. Follow your intuition and what you see. If you KNOW something is not right, it isn’t. It doesn’t matter if someone tells you you’re are fine and normal. There is a reason that you are not feeling fine or normal. Find a pelvic floor physical therapist trained holistically by Tami Lynn Kent or a Sexological Bodyworker who has experience in working internally and seeing the whole of who you are. You need someone who can work sensitively. You may experience an emotional release or a resurgence of grief about your birth story. This is part of the healing process.

3. Be patient but not complacent. Being a new mom can put you in a fog, where everyone else’s needs overshadow yours. In fact, you may only be cursorily experience these symptoms- really feeling them. Some women don’t notice they are avoiding certain positions during sex because of pain, for instance. Taking care of an infant is a full-time job, balancing that with work and partnership can be overwhelming. It is understandable that some of these physical needs have slipped into the backdrop. But now that they are in your awareness, take action. Don’t push through exercises that you have a sinking feeling are exaggerating the symptoms you are feeling. Reach out for the help you need.

4. If you had a traumatic birth experience, not what other people consider traumatic, but what FEELS TO YOU like traumatic, it is CRUCIAL that you get support to process it. Pam England, author of Birthing from Within, offers online Birth Medicine sessions. I study with her, and I cannot recommend her highly enough. She is a true wise woman- she has worked in birth for over forty years and has medicine for each woman and each birth experience. I also highly recommend Somatic Experiencing trauma resolution. Better yet, someone trained in pelvic floor work together with trauma work. Resolving birth trauma is at the root of healing symptoms. Your body won’t let you skip this step. Invest in the step soon!

It is important that we “normal”ize the range of women’s birth experiences, including ecstatic ones and orgasmic ones, so that as women we expand our vision of what birth can be.

Pass this information on to your friends.  Women everywhere need to know that full healing from childbirth is possible, with the right support!

*Thanks to Jane Austin for this important linguistic distinction.

Home Birth. Hospital Birth. Drugs. No Drugs. Doctor. Midwife. Doula.

Our ideals. Practicalities. Money. Opinions.

Having walked the path of pregnancy and birth with dozens of women, I experience first hand the confusion around what to prioritize when constructing a birth experience. These can be agonizing decisions- weighing financial pros and cons of each potential birth scenario, as well as hearing opinions of everyone far and wide about what the best situation is for you or for your baby.

What is important is that a woman feels satisfied with her birth experience, and it may surprise you that it is usually not the actual situational outcome that determines whether or not she was satisfied. I have met women who wanted homebirths and ended up with Cesareans after days of labor who were happier and more resolved about their birth experience than women who had non-medicated hospital labor that from the outside looked exactly as they had imagined it.

In Birth in Four Cultures, Brigitte Jordon shows that there are 3 primary factors that determine a woman’s sense of satisfaction around her birth experience. They are:

1) Her perception of control,

2) How supportive she found the birth environment, and

3) Her prior vulnerabilities (which may include her own birth and childhood, prior abortions or birth experiences, and history of depression)

So to create you ideal birth experience, first you have to have a team in a setting that mirrors your values. This team will have a woman-centered approach where you will feel like you are a part of the decision-making process. A doula has been found to drastically improve birth outcomes, in terms of overall length and less intervention, and will often contribute both to your sense of protagonism and your experience of support.

Your prior vulnerabilities are a little more difficult to assess! We bring all of us to the birth altar. We bring every stage of our growth and our unresolved questions.

Pam England, in her masterpiece, Birthing from Within, recommends looking directly into the face of our fears.  If you feel like you may have some prior experiences or traumas that could affect your birthing experience, it is worth it to talk about them, write about them, and seek therapeutic help. Bringing light to the darker areas will enhance your ability to be present both in birth and in the post-partum period.

So You Have a Prolapse- Now What?

You’re feeling heaviness, sagginess or even a bulge in your pelvic floor. Or maybe you even feel like your organs might just fall down to the ground.

The first thing to do is get an evaluation. Actually, before you do that. Stay calm. Don’t panic. It is normal to feel alarmed and disoriented. This is a giant bummer, but you will get through it. Your organs are not going to actually fall out and there is help. You will be able to get your organs back up where they belong! This is also nothing to be ashamed about. Be easy with yourself. As women, we often push ourselves as far as we can go. Respect the slowness of new motherhood, even if you have other children, and be willing to let things slide—so your organs won’t!

Ask your doctor or midwife to check internally to see how your organs are positioned.If that evaluation feels off, get a second opinion. (You can call a midwife even if you did not birth with one, to get an evaluation) If a doctor tells you there is nothing wrong, but you feel there is, you need a second opinion. If a doctor says you have a prolapse, and to wait a year to see if it gets better, find another doctor. Prolapse rarely gets better on its own. (unlike diastasis which can improve on its own within the first 3 months after giving birth)Ask for a recommendation for a pelvic floor physical therapist.If that physical therapist does not do hands-on, hands-in (internal vaginal or anal work), then request it. Many Sexological Bodyworkers are also trained to work with prolapse.If your birth story is a difficult one, seek trauma counseling through a somatic modality like Somatic Experiencing or Birth Story medicine with Pam England. Birth trauma can affect the muscle tone and responsiveness of your pelvic floor.Order the Janet Hulme Roll for Control home kit for pelvic core rehab exercises. Commit to 15 minutes a day of these, until you feel deep core strength return.Get in the habit of doing 5 minutes of pelvic floor strengthening and some suctioning exercises so that you train your pelvic organs to stay lifted.If you want my help, schedule a phone consult or a postpartum recovery session.

Although it feels like a royal pain to have to go through all this, after you have just been pregnant for 9 months and then birthed a baby, you will see results if you stick to it. This attention to our pelvis is something that actually should be a part of women’s health. So instead of seeing it as a sentence, view it is an opportunity to have optimal pelvic and sexual health. You will actually be ahead of the game, because as we age as women, we all need to strengthen our core and tone our pelvic organs!

What Exactly IS a prolapse?

A prolapse is when your organs have dropped below their optimal position. There are three kinds of prolapses, distinguished by which organ has moved. The three organs that can prolapse in your pelvic floor are your bladder, your cervix and uterus (they are connected), or your rectum.

How Did This Happen?

Some women experience prolapse immediately after giving birth. Extended periods of pushing, fast expulsions, or pushing with a full bladder can sometimes contribute to a prolapse. In this case, most women don’t actually feel the prolapse happen.

You may know exactly how and when your organs dropped down. There may have been a moment when you sneezed and felt things slide down. Or maybe you may have twisted awkwardly to put the car seat in the car and felt a sudden shift.

The most common cause of prolapse that I see in my office is due to overexertion post-partum. Many new moms who feel great after they have given birth get back to their regular activity level and then notice that they have a stage 1,2 or 3 prolapse. New moms are also eager to get back into shape and begin running before there is enough lower back, abdominal and pelvic floor tone to support the bouncing of running. Often, a prolapse ensues.

Frustration Factor

There are many things that can affect your speed of recovery from prolapse. Breastfeeding can affect prolapse because of the hormone relaxin which increases the laxity and softness of ligaments. Ligaments are part of what hold organs in place. So expect to feel a jump in life force and tone when you stop breastfeeding.

Prolapse can also be particularly frustrating because it is unpredictable and does not always correlate with activity level. One day you might be resting and feel that the prolapse is worse. The next day you might go for a walk and surprisingly feel like everything is suspended and light. And then the following day you could feel them lower and heavier again. It can be slow going, but in most cases, non-surgical is both possible, and optimal!

I have been there- I had a rectal prolapse with fecal incontinence and I have healed myself. I do an almost daily practice so that I can experience the joy and freedom of light organs and an ability to use my body however I want to.

The most difficult but most important part of the post-partum period is taking care of ourselves.  Ideally we would have a team of women, our mothers, mother-in-laws, women friends surrounding us so that while we care for our baby, they care for us!

Our whole being is programmed to be fully absorbed with our new baby.  We should nurture that instinct for bonding and overall health. At the same time, it is crucial to remember this simple rule, we cannot give what we do not have. We may not be able to control all of our circumstances, but we can create a peaceful environment with as little stress as possible.

Here are simple concrete steps you can take to protect your precious babysphere and bolster your reserves, so that you and your baby can get to know each other intimately and you can truly rest.

Minimize visitors.

Have other people do household chores.

Rest when your baby rests.

Eat whole foods.

Drink enough water.

Surrender to the space of non-doing.

Write your birth story, with the real emotions, without protecting anyone.

For five minutes each day, connect to your breath.