Your baby is now officially an embryo and is about the size of a poppy seed.
Please visit www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/4-weeks-pregnant/ for more information.
PPHS at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The physiotherapy team at YSTHFT therapeutically assess each woman and birthing person on an individual basis and support their rehabilitation based on clinical findings and shared agreed goals.
Symptoms summary
Examples of the type of symptoms that patients can be referred with both antenatally and postnatally at YSTHFT are:
- Urinary urgency
- Urinary frequency
- Urinary urge incontinence (leaking as you put a key in the door)
- Nighttime urinary frequency (nocturia)
- Stress urinary incontinence (leak with cough or jump)
- Bowel incontinence (wind or stool)
- Bowel urgency
- Bowel frequency
- Constipation
- Difficulty emptying bowel
- Pain on intercourse
- Difficulty having intercourse
- Pelvic pain
- Bladder pain
- Pelvic girdle pain related to pregnancy
- Diastasis rectus abdominis (abdominal separation)
- Pain around site of wound following perineal injury during birth of baby eg episiotomy, tear, forceps assisted birth.
Antenatal support
The physiotherapy team see women and birthing people antenatally and can offer support for the following issues with an appointment within 4–6 weeks of receipt of a referral:
- Bladder dysfunction
- Bowel dysfunction
- Pelvic floor dysfunction
- Diastasis rectus abdominis (abdominal separation)
- Pain on intercourse.
Referrals are accepted from GP’s, midwives, consultants and specialist nurses such as urology nurse specialists and first contact practitioners in doctors surgeries.
Women and birthing people with pregnancy related pelvic girdle pain in the antenatal period are seen within 0–4 weeks of receipt of referral and offered an initial appointment at a virtual group with an individual patient initiated follow up if required.
Postnatal support
In the postnatal period pregnancy related pelvic girdle pain referrals are accepted up to 3 months postnatally, after which they are referred to the musculoskeletal physiotherapy team.
A pathway is in place for all patients who have had an obstetric anal sphincter injury during the birth of their baby and they are routinely invited to attend a physiotherapy appointment as part of that pathway for therapeutic assessment and rehabilitation with the aim of that appointment being at 4–8 weeks postnatally.
