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.
Pelvic floor exercises
During your pregnancy, the increasing weight of your growing baby places pressure on the pelvic floor muscles.
The pelvic floor muscles surround your bladder, bottom and vagina and prevent leakage of urine and provide bladder control. The pelvic floor is made up of a combination of type 1 (slow twitch which contract slowly to provide tone at all times) and type 2 fibres (fast twitch which contract quickly to provide tone when coughing, sneezing or laughing). It is important to strengthen both types of fibres.
How to strengthen type 1 (slow twitch) fibres
- Squeeze the muscles surrounding your back passage (as if you are stopping yourself from passing wind), and then pull up the muscles around the front (as if stopping yourself from urinating).
- Hold for up to 10 seconds. To begin with, you may only be able to hold this for a few seconds, but with practice this should build up to 10 seconds.
- Breathe normally throughout the exercise.
- Relax and then repeat 10 times.
Or…
- Split each contraction of the pelvic floor into 2… begin by squeezing your pelvic floor muscles surrounding your anus and vagina to ½ a contraction and then squeeze to a full contraction and then relax.
- Imagine your pelvic floor rising as you do so to image the exercise.
- Breathe normally throughout.
- Repeat this 5-6 times.
How to strengthen type 2 (fast twitch) fibres
- Squeeze the pelvic floor muscles as fast as you can and then relax.
- Breathe normally throughout.
- Repeat this movement up to 10 times.
Pelvic floor exercises should include around 50 repetitions per day. Many women associate doing pelvic floor exercises with performing a particular task – for example, I will do my pelvic floor exercises whilst feeding my baby.
You can begin to perform pelvic floor exercises as soon as you feel comfortable following your caesarean section. You can perform them laying, sitting or standing.
Pelvic floor exercises should be continued for the rest of your life to maintain strength and reduce risks of a prolapsed uterus or bladder in later life.
