Here's what I don't get about kegels

1344 Views 22 Replies 18 Participants Last post by kerikadi, Aug 17, 2006

metroames

Discussion Starter · Aug 14, 2006

2

After reading the kegel thread it's got me thinking. I too feel that they are unnatural to do and feel squimish after doing more than a couple. Kegels themselves were only discovered a little over 50 years ago by Dr Kegel himself, so I know that women since the beginning of time haven't done them. I totally get that they help strengthen and tighten the pelvic floor, but what I don't get is how they are supposed to help with childbirth. It is my understanding that kegels are supposed to help prevent tears, but I don't see why. Wouldn't it make more sense to do something to help stretch the pelvic floor to prevent this like perinial (sp?) message? Maybe they are to help relax for pushing? I don't know.....I don't do any special exercises to help myself relax when a bm is inevidable.....I let nature guide me.

I guess I'm just wondering how many women believe that kegels really helped with their childbirth. I'll admit that I had a hard time doing them with my last pregnancy and ended up with an episotomy. However, I fully believe that the episotomy was the result of birthing in a bad position and not because I didn't do my kegels religiously. But then after the birth I could not even do kegels. I literally couldn't feel to do them and every time I tried I felt like I was gonna pee myself. I haven't had any urinary incontinence issues either since my last birth. I guess I just don't believe they do any good, yet here I am trying to remember to do them because it won't hurt, right?

So what are your experiences.....did kegels work for you? Did you decide not to do them and have a natural birth without any trauma to your perinium? I'm interested to know!

Amy

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sevenkids

· #2 · Aug 14, 2006

I don't recommend Kegels' during pregnancy, but I don't recommened perineal massage or stretching either. After birth is good for Kegels. Our foremothers didn't do Kegels, but they were far more active than we are, and squatted to use the bathroom and do chores. They didn't need to kegel.
Good hydration, good nutrition, and a hearty dose of good genetics, along with an unforced and unmanipulated second stage is what prevents tears. I don't think you need buns (or perineums) of steel for birth, you need buns of marshmallow; nice, soft, and loose.

After the birth is a different matter, it really does make a huge difference in returning everything back to it's original place.

Seie

· #3 · Aug 14, 2006

I KNOW kegals helped me with both my births.
The main thing they did though was to make me very aware of those muscles and how to relax them. This actually came in very handy at my first birth.
It was a marathon of around 50 hours labor - ending in an epidural and pitocin. At one point they wanted me to pee - darned near impossible to do when you are numb down below. But because of the amount of kegals I had done I knew how to relax those muscles - so I managed to actually pee and saved myself a painful catheter.
Also it helped me during crowning where I felt like sucking that baby back up cause it was so painful. But I knew relaxing would be much more helpful - and again knowing how to relax the pelvic floor I am sure helped me not tear.

My second birth was at home and almost solo (I was alone at home most of the time - DH came home 5 mins before crowning - and MW during crowning. None of them touched me at all during labor and birth)- and again it came in really handy to be able to relax those muscles at will.

Another thing that helped me was to have strong pelvic muscles before birth because I managed to "find" them again straight after birth - and that made it much easier to train them back up.

Kegals are not a "new" invention (only the name). As far as I know they have been used for thousands of year in some asian cultures during sex to make it more pleasureable..

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Synchro246

· #4 · Aug 14, 2006

2

I agree that kegal excersizes help a woman gain awareness and control to her vagina. Relaxing your yoni for birth can be hard (esp if the environment is stressfull) and having built more nerve pathways to those muscles only makes it easier.

I also agree that our ancestors didn't *need* to do kegal excersises because they walked and squatted more, however I do not agree that flexing of the yoni didn't exist. Isn't it in the Kama Sutra??? I find it hard to believe that women didn't flex their vaginas just because a doctor didn't name them. I started flexing my pc muscles when I was like 8 becaused I

liked

the way they felt.

ETA:
I did use them (although not as much as I intended) through out my pregnancy. I had a series of "complications" (prolonged rupture or membranes and malpositioned baby) that lead to a hosp transfer and the use of a vaccume. I tore, but the vacuume was probably responsible.

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Full Heart

· #5 · Aug 14, 2006

I have been doing them for years before I had my first. I never tore, with 6 kids and 3 of them with a 14 1/2 in head and 2 with nuchal arms...I never tore. I could def relax my muscles and after ward when everything down there is bruised bringing blood flow there helped me feel better quickly. I also don't pee myself, unless I sneeze and am bent over or squating, when big and pg. I know thats an embarrassing problem for a lot of women. Heck it can even be for men! I think it also helps to know where to push. And if you have stiches or fissures it can be helpful to slowly have a bm so as not to reopen anything or to relax instead of tighten up when things are sore, which woul djust make things worse.

I think of it this way, its a muscle if you don't use it you loose it, just like any other muscle.

sapphire_chan

· #6 · Aug 14, 2006

Kegels are instead of walking all over the place and squatting instead of sitting. If we were active for most of our lives like women since the beginning of time we wouldn't need them either. Also, if we had babies starting at age 14 or so our skin and muscles would be all nice and elasticy and supple with out needing extra help.

shoefairy3

· #7 · Aug 14, 2006

I never did Kegels...i had a small episiotomy with my 1st and no tearing or anything for the rest of my labors

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arlecchina

· #8 · Aug 14, 2006

I've read actually that it helps more with incontinence issues during preg and after the birth. you're to continue after birth and it helps prevent probs with loose pelvic muscles. I do them as a concern about tears because I feel that the more awareness I have of the region, the less likely I am to do something during labour that I should not do. I havent read that anywhere though.

savithny

· #9 · Aug 15, 2006

I discovered kegeling all on my own before having read about them... just from trying to imitate the muscle flexing of (erm, ahem) orgasm.

Anyway, I think awareness of, and control of, those muscles definitely helped in birthing. The "bulge to the basement" technique, especially, really opened my eyes to the ability to will yourself open and stop tensing and resisting the pains of dilation.

Plus -- a 9-pounder with a small tear, a 10-pounder with no tear at all, and I have never, ever, peed when I cough or sneeze (and I do both a LOT, especially in hayfever season!)

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shellbell

· #10 · Aug 15, 2006

I also began flexing those muscles as a child... not for any particular reason, but always when I was tense or scared.

I didn't do Kegel's with my pregnancies. I tore horribly with my first daughter inside, up to the cervix on both sides of my vagina. They were stitching me for 45 minutes. I also had an episiotomy with her. No drugs (except for the stitching part).

I had an episiotomy and tore also with #2 (but not nearly as bad). No drugs.

PikkuMyy

· #11 · Aug 15, 2006

IME, the point of kegels isn't to make your muscles stronger, but to have better control over flexing AND relaxing them.

I've not been pregnant yet but I have been doing them because I had what's called "Pelvic Floor Disfunction", where your pelvic muscles are tensed up all the time. By learning to contract them on purpose, I learned to relax them on purpose, and that is what has stopped years of bladder pain.

This would go for labor as well, when you have learned to squeeze, RELAX, squeeze, RELAX, then hopefully you'll be able to relax during labor even when it's tense.

shellbell

· #12 · Aug 15, 2006

Quote:

how they are supposed to help with childbirth. It is my understanding that kegels are supposed to help prevent tears, but I don't see why.

Here is what the Bradley book explains: "The baby is pushed out throught he birth canal and the birth canal is surrounded by the PC muscle (which you flex when doing a kegel).

The woman with a wide, loose vaginal barrel will find herself in trouble when she's actually pushing her baby down her saggy birth canal. As her baby passes through her vaginal barrel, the soft unsupported tissue is likely to be pulled forward and dragged downward with the baby's progress. This can result in pinched, torn tissues. This mother is likely to sufer damage to her vagina.

Such damage rarely happens to a mother who has learned and practiced the exercise for the PC muscle. She has a strong hammock of muscle surrounding and supporting her vaginal barrel. The tissues are firmly held in place and well supoorted as the baby passes through."

mezzaluna

· #13 · Aug 15, 2006

2

i tried to walk and squat a lot during pg, but what can i say, i'm a lazy 1st world woman! so i did lots of kegels (was taking a bradley class

) and i did tear significantly... but i really attribute that to mismanagement by the OB - she put me in a semi-recline position, pushed my legs back, started "stretching" me out without permission because the baby was coming so fast, and it felt like she pulled on the baby

:

what i think kegels did help with - my pushing was very effective - 20 minutes only in a 1st time labor, felt totally instinctual. if i can remove a tiny bit of blame from the OB, it may be that some of my tearing was due to pushing out an almost 9lb baby quite quickly!

and afterwards - i was able to pee and have a BM right away. no problems in that department. no postpartum incontinence either - thankfully didn't have to deal with that on top of my poor healing perineum!

i like the idea that it helps you consciously relax those muscles... i certainly practiced both the clenching and unclenching parts of the motion.

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futureCPM

· #14 · Aug 15, 2006

I agree with what many previous posters said but want to point out that kegels have nothing to do with episiotomy. Studies show that it's the choice of the care provider (their rate) rather than any other factor. ACOG has changed their guidelines to say that they're (epis) unnecessary.

Also, in ancient Persia flexing the PC muscle (kegel) was an art form and a measurement of sexual ability/status.

nonconformnmom

· #15 · Aug 15, 2006

metroames wrote:

Quote:

Kegels themselves were only discovered a little over 50 years ago by Dr Kegel himself,

We are doing "kegels" whenever we stop our urine flow midstream. Are you telling me that nobody ever did that, before a doctor named "Dr. Kegel" appeared on the scene? Kegels are a natural means of maintaining strength and flexibility in the vaginal area; ancient women used stone eggs as a means of applying resistance to those muscles and doing strength exercises for their sexual prowess and to maintain youthfulness.

Synchro246

· #16 · Aug 15, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by PikkuMyy
IME, the point of kegels isn't to make your muscles stronger, but to have better control over flexing AND relaxing them.

I disagree. A professor of mine was involved in a study about kegals. They used specially designed pressure catheters that hooked up to a readout (you know, one of those squiggly line read outs that you've seen used with EFM, EKG, and brainwave monitors). The women were tested for stregnth and control in the beginning. Then they were given a series of excercises to do over some period of time.
At the end the women were able to put MUCH more pressure on the catheter (their maximum pressure read averaged something like 3X higher than their initial maximum). They also had more control -- some women had so much control in fact that they could draw pictures (like of a facial profile) in the readout!!! These women reported an improvement in their sex lives and and increase in intensity of orgasm as well.

LoveChild421

· #17 · Aug 15, 2006

2

Quote:

Originally Posted by savithny
I discovered kegeling all on my own before having read about them... just from trying to imitate the muscle flexing of (erm, ahem) orgasm.

I see Kegels as very natural because these are the muscles that I naturally tense-relax during sex- when I first found out what kegels were I thought "its funny people have to make a point to do them- I naturally do them when I DTD and I don't think I could O without that muscle". My childbirth ed. teacher talked about how important the kegel muscle is in orgasm- and all I could think was "duh!" I think people back in the day probably had enough sex (hey what else was there to do?

) that they didn't have to be reminded to use those muscles. And they didn't have episiotomies which often cut right through the kegel and cause a lot of damage to it.

I feel that my informal "kegeling" helped a lot during childbirth- I gave birth on the birth stool and my midwife commented on how it was unusual that I didn't tear at all and that ds came out so slowly because usually gravity just takes over and babies usually come rapidly. I think having strong kegel muscles allowed my body to have more control and take it slow. I also recovered from the birth very quickly- at 6 weeks PP my midwife said that I almost had the same pelvic floor tone and control that I had pre-birth. She commented that things returning to normal so quickly was also pretty unusual.

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metroames

Discussion Starter · #18 · Aug 16, 2006

2

Alright ladies....you are all pretty convincing. I guess I'll keep on kegeling.

Quote:

I see Kegels as very natural because these are the muscles that I naturally tense-relax during sex- when I first found out what kegels were I thought "its funny people have to make a point to do them- I naturally do them when I DTD and I don't think I could O without that muscle". My childbirth ed. teacher talked about how important the kegel muscle is in orgasm- and all I could think was "duh!" I think people back in the day probably had enough sex (hey what else was there to do? ) that they didn't have to be reminded to use those muscles

Well, I have to say that I never thought to tense or relax those muscles during sex and it never came to me naturally. After not being able to O for several months after getting married I started researching and kegels were definately recommended in everything I read. I did start doing them religiously, but after months of frustration with still not Oing I gave up. I never did think they felt natural but actually I felt kinda squimish. Unfortunately, not everyone finds it natural and therefore doctors/teachers do have to make a point to have us do them.

:

Amy

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Kidzaplenty

· #19 · Aug 16, 2006

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mostly jays

· #20 · Aug 16, 2006

I pushed my first baby out in hmmm 3 - 4 pushes and had a pretty good tear. Never kegeled...what was that?, second baby, quiet a few years later... no tear... good, relaxed pushing, and kegeled! In reading the posts, a few things come to mind. First is the ripping sheet analogy. Cut a fabric sheet first (the sheet resembles our perineal musculature), and it's way easier to rip (like our perineum and an epi), well what about a more thin, weak sheet? Probably also easier to tear, even without the cut! The kegal muscle is also about supporting the babe's head in a tuck position, to come under the pubic bone. Then there is the question of incontinence. Do we know how many of our elder mothers have this issue?

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