What’s the fourth trimester?
While birth is the end of your pregnancy journey, many medical professionals and experienced parents acknowledge that a new mom’s physical and emotional experience is just beginning. The fourth trimester is the transitional period between childbirth and 12 weeks postpartum.
Your baby is adjusting to a new world and you are adjusting to your baby. While there’s much to be celebrated, it can also be a physically and mentally taxing time for parents and a period of major developmental changes for your baby. Your newborn is also encountering unfamiliar territory. The world they’ve now entered is nothing like the warm and cozy womb they’ve called home for the last several months.
Parents also experience major transitions during the first 12 weeks. The learning curve is real; it takes time to master those swaddling skills and distinguish cries of hunger from those of discomfort. Additionally, birth parents may be contending with postpartum pain, sleep deprivation, breastfeeding challenges, and fluctuating hormones. Hormonal changes occur as the body starts moving from pregnancy hormone levels to re-balance, resulting in emotional, physiological, and physical changes, which can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Postpartum, these changes may spontaneously resolve or persist.
No matter how your newborn is delivered – no two recoveries are completely alike, and you need to listen to your body. It can be hard to strike a balance between taking care of yourself and tending to your baby, but a healthy, happy parent is more equipped for the journey of parenthood, so be sure to prioritize your own needs too.
Where does Physical Therapy Play a Role?
Physical Therapy plays two separate roles for pregnant and postpartum women. For some it’s a focus on prevention and education on breastfeeding tips/ techniques, posture. It’s also a great time to develop an awareness of the pelvic floor muscles and how to use them.
1/3 of women who give birth are unable to contract their pelvic floor muscles properly.
The other side of physical therapy includes receiving treatment for the various issues that arise during pregnancy that result in pain, difficulty walking, getting out of bed/moving around, etc. Some women are able to hit the ground running after birth which is amazing. For many others, it’s smart to resolve postpartum issues so they don’t interfere with your ability to take care of yourself and your new baby.
Prevention is Better Than a Cure
It is important for a pregnant woman to understand and attend to her body during the prenatal period to accelerate and optimize postpartum recovery. New moms will be in a better position to focus on caring for themselves, newborn(s), and family life, thereby improving function and quality of life.
Preventative physical therapy may include a combination of:
- Education to improve body mechanics and movement
- Postural Re-education
- Breathing mechanics to restore diaphragmatic breathing techniques
- Stretching exercises
- Strengthening exercises
- Balance activities/ stability/ stabilization
- Recommendation of splints or support belts
Fourth Trimester Conditions Physical Therapists Treat
Post-partum, women may consult with a physical therapist for:
- Pain: Back, neck, SIJ, Tailbone, Pubic Symphysis pain and/or separation
- Nerve Dysfunction: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Sciatica, Pudendal Neuralgia
- Shortness of breath
- Diastasis Rectus Abdominis
- Leg spasms
- Pelvic Dysfunction: urinary incontinence, pelvic pressure, constipation, pelvic muscle weakness, Pelvic Organ Prolapse (pelvic heaviness), fecal incontinence, Dyspareunia (pain with intercourse)
- Scaring and pain secondary to a perineal tear, episiotomy, or C-Section
Keep In Mind
The fourth trimester is what you’ve been waiting for — your baby has arrived and you are officially a parent! Enjoy this fleeting time. It will be frustrating, draining, but so incredibly rewarding.
We are here to help! We offer Telehealth appointments for pregnant and postpartum moms that are unable to see a physical therapist in person.
We offer up to 1 hour long appointments working with a physical therapist (no aides) in a private treatment room and are conveniently located near the Brooklyn Bridge in downtown Manhattan.
