Physical therapist helps Clark County women train for pregnancy, labor

When Haley Baker learned she was pregnant with her second child, she knew she wouldn’t do things the same way she did during her first pregnancy.

Baker, 35, was in labor for 36 hours with her son, now 5 years old, and ended up needing an emergency cesarean section.

“For my son, I didn’t do anything to prepare for birth, and it was the wrong thing to do,” she said. “I underestimated how challenging having a baby was.”

“I didn’t want a repeat experience of what I had with my son,” she added.

So when she was about 20 weeks pregnant, Baker reached out to women’s health physical therapist Christina Trautman. The pair met for an hour each week up until Baker was put on bed rest at 35 weeks due to pregnancy complications. Despite the unexpected problems, Baker said she felt better about labor this time around.

“She really just helped me be aware of the muscles you use and tactics you can use in the delivery room,” she said. “My body just feels more prepared.”

Preparing women for pregnancy, labor and delivery is just part of what Trautman’s new practice, Bella Health and Wellness Studio, is all about. The other key component: postpartum recovery.

The goal is to help women stay fit and healthy during pregnancy and, after delivery, to help the body heal and prevent pelvic floor problems later in life.

“We do all of these other treatments for our body, but why not this area?” Trautman said.

“I just want people to understand there are options,” she said. “And they can get the preventive care.”

Pelvic dysfunction

Trautman developed pelvic floor dysfunction in high school. Through therapy, she was able to resolve her symptoms. The personal experience led to an interest in physical therapy and a career in the field with a specialty in women’s health.

Trautman has been treating women with pelvic floor dysfunction at various practices in Portland and Vancouver for about seven years. During that time, she’s seen countless post-menopausal women with pelvic organ prolapse, which is when an organ begins to fall from its place.

“I was seeing a lot of the same patients over and over with the same thing,” Trautman said. “I feel like a broken record.”

That led Trautman to open a studio earlier this year in her Felida home and work with women one-on-one while they’re pregnant, and soon after delivery, to prevent the issues she sees so often in older women. She’s offered similar programs at Portland rehab studios.

During pregnancy, Trautman trains clients to engage their deep core and pelvic floor muscles to keep abdominal muscles strong and reduce the chance of abdominal separation. She works with clients on functional training — movements to help with balance and keep the body strong and pain-free as it changes. Finally, Trautman does labor training using cardio exercises and mental imagery.

Women who have gone through the program have an average push time of 15 to 30 minutes and experience less back and pelvic pain, Trautman said. In addition, the separation of abdominal muscles is almost nonexistent.

“We make sure every aspect we can control, we control,” Trautman said.

Then, about six weeks after delivery, Trautman and her clients begin postpartum work. The emphasis of the work is to engage the pelvic and core muscles after the traumatic experience of birth.

Too often, Trautman said, women are not educated about how to rehabilitate those muscles after pregnancy and childbirth.

“If you tear any other muscle in your body, there’s some sort of rehab,” Trautman said. “But these pelvic floor muscles aren’t being rehabilitated.”

The problem with that, Trautman said, is without rehabilitation, the muscles will lose strength. Over time, gravity can cause organs to start to descend, or other muscles will have to work harder to compensate for the weakness, which leads to pain.

As soon as she heals, mom Haley Baker plans to return to Trautman to begin her postpartum recovery.

“I think people underestimate how hard child birth is and anything you can do to prepare your body better is beneficial,” Baker said. “And Christina really opened my eyes to that.”