Alternatives to Kegels?

You can get much better in the first year post partum...

But - As for strengthening your vagina (in making the walls touch etc) I am not 100% sure - I must admit when i did farrrrrrrr too many kegels it did make this area much much tighter (So i was told by him lol) But if you think about it - It becomes a trade off - You may be tighter in that respect but your prolapse will be 'draggier' So I think you hafta find a happy medium for yourself. If you did say 5 kegels a day - Good kegels I am talking about - Hold for ten seconds a time and as you are counting make it like you are walking up steps - Every second number squeeeeeeeze that tiny bit more like a lift raising itself slowly up.. This may help - But I would NOT do more than ten (In fact I may do only 3-6 myself!)

Other than this the posture will put the organs back in place and in the following 6 months there is a very good chance that time will help to heal this - So please - Do not do anything that is too drastic in this time. You want to heal yourself not hurt yourself ok :-)

I have also found (TMI here ya ready lol)

When you are having sex - Squeeeeeeeeze and ask your partner can he feel it. At first he will say no (Do not do this for too long as it is in all effects a kegel) After a week try again he may say 'a little' and then things will gradually get better from there. You are ONLY 6 months post partum and to be totally honest - I never did a single kegel until my youngest wasnearly three years old (So at this time I had a 3yr old (early) a 14 and a 13 yr old! See - kegels when I started kegelling myself to death just made everything worse for me! You do not wanna make the muscle struggle to do it's job by kegelling it into insanity (like i did)

And I noticed alot of changes over this past couple of years (cant remember exactly how long I have been here - maybe it's only a year - Nahhhhh - It's two years this August I think)
I have noticed tons of changes - when i got here it was peeking all the time - I felt like cr*p! I was scared and felt alone. Never feel this way - Cos I am here :-) Can ya feel that feminine energy flowing thru you now you are embraced by all of us :-)

In this past two years (year and a half - whatever) I have gone from strength to strength - Mainly cos i stopped freaking out about kegels, and started thinking about life.

Enjoy your baby - Do say - 4 kegels tomorrow - hole for a count of 5 - In 4 days do 5 in 4 days do 6 then maybe count to 6. It is not the amount that is key or the length of time that you hold - It is the working it in a small way - Remember - If every day I lift one can of pop - for someone who did nothing - that is a weight. To lift that can 5 times a day works a muscle in the same way as a weight full of sand. You really do not need impliments (Please believe me I was training to teach aerobics before I got MS)

A weight is just resistance - Any muscle can be worked upon but this is a very special muscle - It is not in one respect a muscle like your bicep, think of it as a muscle that is not 'buildable' in strength in the way your biceps would be if youlifted a hundred times a day - LESS IS MORE.

Just take is easy and enjoy your baby - When you lift your baby IN the posture you will be getting stronger inside your body from the babys weight and this weight is always increasing.

Ok I rambled into uselessness again lolol
Sorry bout that

Basically all you need to do is take it easy and keep the posture going. All will be well - You are ONLY 6mths post partum remember.

Oh Reka, my heart goes out to you. I’m cutting and pasting the following from an email I just sent out last night on the same subject. This woman was much older than you and just starting to understand the long term effects of obstetric trauma.

“Diminishment of your perineum through obstetric trauma has caused your lower vaginal wall to have to bear much of the brunt of intraabdominal pressure. We should have a bulky, elastic tendon (perineal body) to support that area by allowing the entire back of the pelvis to move like a trampoline with increases in pressure. Instead, most of our generation have a gaping vagina taking up the slack. Right behind that, often with no buffer in between, many women have varying degrees of irreversible injury to their anal sphincter. This is the reality of it and I’ve done my best to describe why further surgery in this area is often not in our best interest. These highly evolved mechanisms cannot be surgically reconstructed.

We are an entire generation of women with terrible obstetric wounds and nowhere to go with them but forward. To me, this means working in natural ways with what we have left. In my own case, diet and posture lead that response and if for some reason my condition worsens, I will then address it with healing salves and external support garments.

I know I will never ‘be myself’ again, but I’m happy, healthy, and focused on making sure these ruinous practices are stopped forever.”

Reka…I think Sue is right that you will probably see further improvement. And her suggestions are really the most plausible ones – supporting the body back toward its functional design. I believe that when the dust settles we will know there exist no magic bullets for prolapse – just meticulous prevention and lots of support in the event of injury. xC.

hindsight is a wondeful thing. if i had known at my first delivery what i now know, that is that any episiotomy past the midline was likely to cause irreversible injury to the perineum, and prolapsed organs, then i would never have consented to it, and would have went for the c section i had also signed a consent for.
as it is, i am now stuck with the realisation that nearly 7 years ago i sustained an irreversible injury.
but then again, having given birth vaginally, i wasn't limited to 3 c sections, and have a 4th baby, a wonderful sweet little girl.
its a question of focussing on the good things.
yes, my bladder is now visible from outside my vagina, but i don't leak, and i have 4 lovely children. my rectocele has improved following my tear and restitching (but for how long?)
i would love to see the campaign for informed consent extend from hysterectomies to episiotomies and instrumental births.

if anyone ever does find the magic solution let me know.....

I have no idea if any of my episiotomies were mid line or not....

We the people of the instant gratification generation here by declare that .........
I am just going to be patient-
here is how I look at it- seven months ago my vagina passed an eight and a half pound baby- and in the past seven months things have only gotten better....imagine what will be seven months from now-
I like the idea of being postpartum for a few years. give it time Reka- it will get better and better....

i thought you might find this link helpful. i think the photos speak volumes about the trauma done to the perineum by episiotomies.

my episiotomy cut through my vagina's back wall and came up the side of my anus. it affected my sex life afterwards causing pain and discomfort. 6 months later they gave me steroid injections into the scar site to help with this.

yukk!

http://www.moondragon.org/obgyn/procedures/episiotomyrepair.html

HOLYSMOKES!! I found that completely horrifying. Moondragon has no business passing such information along to people who might think such a tremendously complicated and serious cut will only take a little sewing instruction to put back together!! Those are extremely serious wounds that may take four and five attempts by skilled surgeons to close. I AM ANGRY!!!!! A midwifery information page is no place for instructing how to repair a mutilated anal sphincter! And her page on prolapse is hopelessly inaccurate and incomplete. BAH-H-H-H!!! Thank you, Babs, for sending it to us.

Well I had a feel around and am pretty sure that the scar (Or thickened bit i can feel) Is to the right. My first birth was forceps with Epi 2nd was Epi and nothing else 3rd was a tear...

Guess I just hafta put up with wht I am left with now...
Who is Moondragon?

I looked for the prolapse part of the site (under P and prolapse of the Uterus) but it was GONE......I wonder, is she updating her information? Did one of you women already get in contact with her? WW work fast!

I don't have time to write her just yet, but am composing it in my head every spare minute I have!

Hi Reka,

I have a very similar situation to yours - with an episiotomy that had the midwives telling me it 'looked sore.' It was classed as second degree with a second degree tear as well.

I have the same 'gaping vagina' issue now but I can say that for me it did improve in the first year to year and a half - and that's even before knowing about this site.

It still seems to tighten up sometimes but then slacken off again if I've been very busy, done much lifting, much physical activity, after sex etc. But I can tell you it's way more comfortable than it was when I first had my baby.

I used to find it unbearable to even walk to the end of my street, but now (two years later) I can walk for at least 30 minutes comfortably - sometimes longer. I still feel the 'brick falling out of me' sensation if I do too much and after swimming, but apart from that I can live with it pretty reasonably now.

I hope you find Christine's site even more helpful.