Why Every Mom-to-be And New Mom Should Be Doing Perineal Massage

Babies don’t stop coming just because we’re in the midst of a pandemic. Soon-to-be mamas are faced with less access to prenatal care, which is super stressful. But you can, to an extent, take care into your own hands with perineal massage during the last weeks of your pregnancy.

Here’s how it can help.

1. It gets your body ready for childbirth

Perineal massage is often recommended in the last 4-6 weeks of pregnancy to help prepare the pelvic floor for childbirth. Sometimes called birth canal widening, it’s done by applying gentle but firm pressure to the perineal muscles from inside the vagina to help gradually stretch the muscles. This gets you used to the sensation of the pressure and stretch you’ll feel during active delivery, plus there’s solid evidence that it makes delivery easier on your body: perineal massage can reduce the risk of tearing, the need for an episiotomy, and the need for an instrument-assisted birth with vacuum or forceps. Of course, even once you know these benefits, the logistics of actually reaching your vagina to do perineal massage when you’re nearly nine months pregnant are tricky at best. If you’re not comfortable with having your partner do it, the Kegel Release Curve is a great pelvic floor wand to make it easier when working around a bump.

2. It gets you familiar with your body

Doing perineal massage late in your pregnancy also helps you get in tune with your body, which can be a big help when you’re giving birth. If you have a baseline sense of what stretching will feel like during delivery, it’s one less thing to worry or think about when you’re in the thick of things. You’ll also know what stretching should feel like, so if something feels off, you can communicate that to your birthing team. No one accomplishes doing the splits with meditation, breathing and visualization alone. Your muscle and connective tissues still have to learn how to accomodate to the stretch. Familiarizing yourself with the physical and mental stretch is bang for your buck.

3. It relieves stress in your pelvic floor muscles

Fun fact: One of the first places in the body that reacts to stress is your pelvic floor. Muscular tension is a classic fight or flight response—it’s the body’s way of armouring up to protect itself. And while you’ve probably never noticed it, your pelvic floor muscles will often tense up when you’re stressed even before your neck, shoulders, back, head or jaw. All this stress can cause vaginal muscles to get chronically tired, cranky and tense, and that can lead to problems such as incontinence and pain during penetrative vaginal sex. There’s no doubt we’re all feeling immense stress right now, and it’s especially acute for pregnant women, who are worried about coronavirus exposure in the hospital, giving birth without a close partner at their side and the health of their baby. So being able to ease some of that tension being held in their pelvic floor before giving birth will really help their muscles work better when it’s go time.

4. It can help you recover from childbirth

There’s no sugar-coating it: Having a baby causes trauma to your body. Your vaginal and pelvic floor muscles are going to be stretched and swollen, and you may have some tearing. Recovery takes time, and even once your doctor gives you the okay to have sex again (usually around six weeks postpartum), your body will still be recovering and you’ll need to ease into it. Postpartum recovery is not unlike recovering from surgery. If you had knee surgery, you wouldn’t be back running on it six weeks later without some strengthening and physiotherapy. So why would you think your vaginal muscles can go straight from resting after childbirth to back in the sex saddle again? You need to rehab your pelvic floor—for your sex life and also bladder control—and perineal massage can be a big help. By slowly and gently reintroducing perineal massage after your doctor gives you the go-ahead, you’ll release the protective tension in your perineal muscles. Just as with stress-related tension, your muscles need to release the tension in order to be able to contract and relax fully—which is necessary for comfort during sex and bladder control.

From childbirth prep to postpartum recovery and beyond, perineal massage puts pelvic floor care into your hands—so your vagina can be strong and sexy, and live its best life.

Kate Roddy is a pelvic physiotherapist and mom of two who developed the Kegel Release Curve to make perineal massage easier, so women can take control of pelvic floor self-care