Postpartum Pelvic Girdle Pain: A Year of Undiagnosed Pain

After the birth of my son, I had no clue what was going on with my body. It took twelve months to find out. A whole year of pain, and I didn't even know there was a name for what I was going through: pelvic girdle pain (PGP).

Here's what I experienced: pelvic pain, almost daily, hip pain on one side, a deep ache in the thigh that ran up into my groin, like a constant tightness. Trouble even starting to go to the toilet, with a feeling that I never fully emptied. A bulging tummy, because my breathing mechanics were distorted and I was pushing out instead of managing the pressure properly. On top of that, diastasis. It was a whole complex picture, not one symptom, but many, all connected.

This is exactly why it matters to see a pelvic floor physiotherapist if you're going through something similar. My experience was high-tone pelvic floor muscles. For someone else it might be incontinence, prolapse, or something else entirely. These things can be heightened after having a baby, or through menopause, as your hormones shift.

Pelvic health is not something to suffer through in silence, and too often symptoms get dismissed one at a time, a bit of hip pain here, a bit of bloating there, when actually they need to be looked at as a whole. That's the value of a proper assessment: it connects the dots instead of treating each symptom in isolation.

Breath work matters immensely here. Improving how you breathe helps engage the deeper abdominal muscles, which in turn supports the pelvic floor.

If any of this sounds familiar, please don't wait a year like I did. Go and see a pelvic floor physio, then come to Pilates, and we'll work on those muscles together, properly, and with a plan. Classes run Saturdays at Vulcan Works and Wednesdays at The Elgar Centre in Upton.