When should I think about my pelvic floor and breath in fitness?

February 18, 2020

“When should I think about my pelvic floor and breath in fitness, and when can I rely on it to happen automatically?” Always? Never? Some? This is a real time issue for female athletes returning to fitness or sport after pregnancy and delivery. My answer here represents the shift in thinking I hope to continue […]

Can we talk about diastasis research?

March 13, 2019

Dear Diastasis Community-Can we talk about diastasis research?  Recently, I returned to school to pursue my DPT (a clinical doctorate in physical therapy). My middle schooler and high schooler have assured me that it can’t possibly be as hard as what they are studying, so I am not allowed any whining. Which sucks because Pharmacology […]

Lose the Incontinence, Improve Performance

January 18, 2018

Episode 321 of the Health Wealthy and Smart Podcast originally recorded as a Facebook Live

Web-Based Treatment for Women with Stress Urinary Incontinence

October 22, 2017

Three years ago this month I was celebrating my first peer reviewed publication, a telehealth study -“Web Based Treatment for Women with Stress Urinary Incontinence”, in the Oct 2014 issue of the Journal of Urologic Nursing. The study looked at the use of an online course designed for women to independently perform to address their incontinence. […]

Progress Isn’t Always a Straight Line

Progress isn’t always a straight line. Rehab and returning to activities you enjoy can be a fickle beast.  . Or if we just do these four exercises you will be all better, but that is not always how it works. This is particularly true in the early post-partum period. Women are healing, tired, hormones are […]

Q and A: Swimming and Pelvic Organ Prolapse

Q: Do you have any suggestions for swimming with a pelvic organ prolapse.  A:  I really love swimming for my female athletes as they work to recover from prolapse and return to some movement and fitness and get their heart rate up. Generally, the lack of impact makes it a great place for ladies who […]

Pelvic Floor Health and Running: It’s So Much More than Incontinence!

September 19, 2017

So excited to share this conversation with Another Mother Runner on pelvic health and running. It was such a blast! Got to share lots of ideas to continue to first broaden our definition of what a pelvic health problem is, then link it to common postpartum running inefficiencies that may never have been considered from […]

Alignment vs Positional Variability: Is that the right question?

July 3, 2017

The water is getting pretty murky out there, and I am seeing and hearing a lot of confusion regarding this question: alignment (defined as a specific alignment, usually “neutral”, the use of an optimized position) or variability (adopting a variety of postures) for pelvic health or diastasis concerns. Unfortunately, these two ideas have been communicated […]

Diastasis In 100% of Women??

December 17, 2015

So much for bringing calm back in to my online life. Once again I find myself disgruntled with the ‘Everyone-should-brace-after-having-a-baby’ camp. I think my feelings are well-placed, as it is our professional responsibility to get accurate information into the hands of both practitioners and the public. It is critical. A blog came across my desk, […]

Diastasis: Zip it up!

March 5, 2014

I like to think of a diastasis that has resisted closure like an open zipper. An open fly affects more that just the zipper, it strains the button above, it messes with the fit of the pants, exposes things not supposed to be exposed, etc. Addressing your zipper may need a multi-tiered approach to re-zip: […]