A tour of the female pelvis for pregnancy, labour and birth

How well do you know your pelvis? 

You may have been experiencing some discomfort during your pregnancy which has made you more aware of your pelvis.  This may be around the pelvic joints, or it maybe a sense of much more pressure down into the pelvic floor as there is a lot more weight than usual for it to hold up with your growing baby.  These experiences can come and go through pregnancy.

It is really useful to understand more about your pelvis and how it is amazingly built to open for labour and birth, to enable your baby to pass through. (As well as support all its usual organs and weight and additional weight through pregnancy)

The video above is a great way to visually see a tour of your pelvis.  But here also are a couple of pictures and an overview of what I share in the video.

The female pelvis.

1.  On the front of the pelvis we have a thick fibrous cartilage that joins the two sides of the pelvis at the symphysis pubis . During labour and birth, with the help of hormones, the symphysis pubis is able to open to allow baby through. It can open as much as eight to nine centimetres to make more space through the pelvis, It does mean that this part of the pelvis can particularly feel unstable during pregnancy and you might be feeling some discomfort here. And when it's more extreme discomfort, we call it pelvic girdle pain (PGP) or symphysis pubis disorder (SPD). So it is a blessing to have the ability for the pelvis to have some ability to shift and accommodate our baby and our pregnancy and labour and our birth, but the downside is it can create instability.

2.  At the back of the pelvis we have two joints called the sacroiliac of SI joints These have a little bit of flex as well and can open a few millimetres which is enough to create more space for baby to move through. There is also the tail bone, which has the ability to lift and move out of the way during birth to facilitate baby’s exit. Again, we sometimes get discomfort in these areas.

3.  The discomfort of PGP or SPD can move around. It’s not necessarily in one place, not always on both sides. It can be just one side, or just at the front or even underneath. So again, it's great that the pelvis has the ability, magically, to shift and adapt as it needs to, but it does mean that there's instability.

4.  The bones at the top of the pelvis are quite high up and they're quite close to your ribs here.  Have a feel and see.

5.  At the bottom, we have what we call our sit bones, the bones that we sit on.

6.  The pelvis is kind of like a bowl but it's not a bowl that sits in balance, if you stand or sit in proper alignment, our pelvis is actually slightly tilted forwards as if what the bowl is containing might start to pour out a little. 

Try to be aware of keeping this slightly tilted forward position when you're sitting at any point during your pregnancy. I would suggest that you sit with your knees below your hips, propping yourself up with a cushion in the car, on the sofa, particularly the sofa, where we tend to slump back to that nice relaxed position – but that’s actually that's going to take pelvis out of alignment. And every other seat you use regularly – for work or at the dining table, so that your hips are higher than your knees and that will keep the pelvis in its proper alignment that's going to help with stability throughout your pregnancy.

If 90% of the time you're in a good alignment, that's going to help stability and also the positioning of your baby into the pelvis in the best possible way which will help you through your labour. A birthing ball is great to sit on for this – make sure its inflated big enough to have hips higher than knees.

7.      At the base of pelvis. We have a hammock of muscles called the pelvic floor. They hold in our bowels, they hold in our bladder they hold in all the other organs above, and of course when we're pregnant they hold all the extra weight of baby, placenta, and everything else including all the extra fluid, so it's doing a big job. The pelvic floor is a bowl shaped hammock of muscles. It goes from sit bone to sit bone, and it goes from the pubic symphysis at the front right to the tail bone at back. It’s important to keep the pelvic floor, healthy – a balance of strength and tone and elasticity to help you through your labour, birth and beyond.

8.  I have another video about optimal foetal positioning and how important it is to try and keep your pelvis alignment as much as possible watch it here

I hope that you have found this blog helpful - do contact me if you have any questions.