Rethinking Postpartum Care | Sara Reardon | TEDxLSU

Rethinking Postpartum Care | Sara Reardon | TEDxLSU



How often do people talk about vaginas? Pelvic floor physical therapist Sara Reardon argues that it should be more often, and not simply for shock value. She is on a mission is to change the way we care for women and their vaginas. In this insightful and at times funny talk, Sarah shares stories by women struggling through treatable postpartum health issues, highlights the broader impacts lack of postpartum care can have on society, and reminds us that having open conversations about health promote stronger and happier women – itself a worthy end goal. Sara Reardon wants to revolutionize the way we approach women’s health, with a radical honesty and open discussion of often-taboo topics. The board-certified women's health physical therapist and doctor of physical therapy started her career in pelvic health in Austin and Dallas before returning to her hometown of New Orleans in 2017. Today she is the owner of NOLA Pelvic Health, a private practice providing pelvic health physical therapy. Sara specializes in the treatment of pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, including pelvic pain, bowel and bladder dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, and pregnancy and postpartum recovery. She is also the founder of an online resource for pelvic health education that provides telehealth sessions to support, empower and educate women worldwide. Her open and occasionally blunt discussions of rarely discussed women’s health issues have gained her a substantial international following while serving to shine a light on important, and issues of wellness. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

many modern day American moms prepare for childbirth by reading books taking classes at the hospital and talking to experienced moms to get advice and we often go into childbirth excited about life afterwards as a mother after the baby we plan to come home from the hospital and get into a routine of breastfeeding diaper changes in naps and then return to sex and exercise after our six-week checkup with our doctor but what actually happens when we get home from the hospital is quite different we have done all the preparation for childbirth but very little preparation for after the birth we've been educated on how to care for our babies but not educated on how to care for our bodies so we hide any physical struggles behind for smiles and filtered photos because the real picture isn't pretty in fact it can feel shameful embarrassing and even gross this is a photo of me one week after the birth of my son and let me just tell you that baby is not the only one wearing a diaper in that photo welcome to motherhood the birth class is at the hospital failed to tell me that while I was snuggling my sweet newborn on my chest I'd also be lying with a heating pad under my back and an ice pack over my vagina my postpartum reality looked quite different than the photos I'd seen of other new moms on my Instagram feed and what bothers me so much about this is that even I a physical therapist that specializes in pelvic health had this experience which brings me to my talk today there are a lot of postpartum topics affecting women in the United States that desperately need more attention the lack of breastfeeding support the cost of child care unpaid maternity leave and the high maternal mortality rate but I'm here today to talk to you about just one woman's vaginas my my mission is to change the way we care for women and their vaginas to help our collective society stay healthy so this means bring vaginas into the spotlight for some honest conversations now this might feel a little bit weird at first but I assure you having conversations about our bodies is not about shock value it's about being aware of health issues that are addressable and when addressed help us a fuller happier and more productive lives so let's get started physical therapists treat muscles and tissues and nerves in the body pelvic health physical therapists like myself treat muscles and tissues in the pelvic region of the body which are responsible for some pretty important day-to-day functions like peeing pooping supporting your organs having sex and birthing a baby during pregnancy a woman's body goes through a lot of changes ligaments often pelvic floor and abdominal muscles stretch and posture changes and the act of childbirth can result in surgery or perineal tearing adding an additional layer of physical trauma these changes and complications can unexpectedly lead to pelvic floor issues that often go on addressed about half of women who give birth are still in pain months later a third have urinary or bowel issues and two-thirds have an abdominal separation called diastasis recti so although you may think you don't know anyone that has these experiences the fact is most postpartum women have these issues but they're just not talking about them during pregnancy we have increasingly frequent check-ins with our care provider leading up to our expected due date and the focus is on the health of the mother and the baby after birth this attention shifts mostly to the health of the baby and no longer the mom in the United States women leave the hospital within 24 to 48 hours after giving birth with just a brief bedside check-in after returning home the baby gets a checkup at five days one week two weeks and four weeks the mom nothing within the first four weeks after giving birth a mother does not have a single planned checkup with a care provider within the first year the baby will have up to eight planned doctor visits the mom one she'll got one visit with her care provider around six weeks after giving birth and that visit usually entails a discussion about birth control and then a thumbs up to return to sex and exercise that's it there's often not even a physical exam let alone one that assesses her pelvic floor and abdominal muscles that have been greatly compromised so women are sent home at this point with reassurances that they're fine and oftentimes they're not in my 12 years as a pelvic health physical therapist I've worked with thousands of women who've experienced pelvic floor disorders as a direct result of pregnancy birth and the lack of postpartum care one in every four employed women will return to work within two weeks after giving birth when she is still sore healing and literally still bleeding and 43 percent of mothers end up leaving their jobs for a period of time 20 percent of women have urinary leakage after childbirth and women with urinary leakage are almost twice as likely to experience postpartum depression which can lead to struggles to bond with her baby stress on her relationship and a delay in her infants development and urinary leakage increases with aging affecting almost 50% of women over the age of 65 and it's one of the number one reasons for admission to a nursing home later in life when we don't function well we can't perform well yet new mothers are entering back into society and the workforce physically impaired after childbirth with the expectation to function at full capacity standard medical care is the equivalent of just putting a band-aid over the problem they may receive medications injections or surgery which can be costly painful and often only temporarily effective a lesser-known but highly effective option is pelvic floor physical therapy over the years I've worked with thousands of women and they have all said I had no idea having a baby could do this to my body and why didn't anyone tell me about pelvic floor therapy sooner we as women are not getting the information we need and I want to change that so I did what any modern woman would do who felt she had something important to share I started an Instagram account and on it I share my knowledge and expertise about pelvic floor health particularly during the time of pregnancy and postpartum recovery and from this women from all over the country all over the world started writing and pouring their hearts out about how they were experiencing pelvic floor issues that were affecting their ability to live their lives they hadn't been talking about them were not aware there was help and had come to believe they were just a normal part of motherhood let me share with you a few of their stories one mom who was still experiencing pain with sex six months after the birth of her baby when she finally worked at the courage to talk to her doctor about it she was told just drink a glass of wine and use more Lube welcome to motherhood another mom who felt like her organs were falling out of her vagina she was told just wait until you're done having babies and then we'll do surgery to fix it welcome to motherhood and another mom who had learned to laugh off the little leaks of urine until she was jumping in the bounce house at her son's birthday party and completely soaked her jeans welcome to motherhood going through pregnancy having a baby and growing your family means sacrificing a lot of things in your life sleep a social life and oftentimes even a career but it should not mean having to sacrifice your health and well-being we are letting the women of our country down American moms deserve better postpartum care we can find inspiration and solutions by looking at other countries that prioritize the need for postpartum support in Chinese culture there's a period called sitting the month where new moms focus on nutrition hydration and bonding with her new baby as she's cared for by other women in the community in traditional Indian practices there's a confinement period of 40 days where a new moms are encouraged to stay indoors do minimal housework and receive a daily massage to soothe aching muscle which sounds pretty nice and in France every French mother is prescribed pelvic floor physical therapy after childbirth they automatically receive pelvic floor re-education that's proven to decrease urinary leakage strengthened weakened muscles and help make sex more pleasurable and the government pays for it so yes there are clearly some cultural differences between these countries in the United States but this is still a universal health issue that needs to be addressed very recently the American College of obstetrics and gynecology updated their postpartum care recommendations to state that women should receive a postpartum visit at three weeks have ongoing care and then conclude with a 12-week postpartum visit so this is great and this is progress but postpartum starts on day one and does not stop at week 12 postpartum is forever so is there a different way I think there is as a medical professional and as a mom I believe it's time to rethink our postpartum care and do more to support the women of our country first we need to start talking we as mothers need to share our stories we need to share the unfiltered version of motherhood to D stigmatize the personal pain that so many women endure the adult diapers the engorged breasts the leaky bladders and the painful poops we need to shine a light on these postpartum realities so the women behind us don't suffer in silence like so many of us have second we as medical professionals need to foster these conversations research clearly shows that if we don't ask patients directly about these issues they're likely to embarrassed to tell us and then we need to provide them real solutions and not just give them a brochure to do their kegels and third we as a society need to recognize that health issues are human health issues when these problems go unaddressed the consequences affect our children our partners our colleagues in our communities even decades down the line pelvic floor issues are not a normal part of just being a woman and when we don't talk about these very real problems we can't advocate for very real solutions because these problems are treatable my hope is that by shining a light on vaginas we can change the culture of society to help bring mothers out of the shadows to stop suffering in silence and to thrive instead of just survive and that's change the meaning of welcome to motherhood thank you [Applause]

#Rethinking #Postpartum #Care #Sara #Reardon #TEDxLSU

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