Women's Health | By Michelle Gatt, Clinical Nurse Specialist
The Pelvic Floor: Your Body's Most Overworked, Underappreciated Muscle Group
Still leaking after having kids? Welcome to the club nobody warned you about.
Let's set the scene. You sneeze. Not even a big one. A polite, indoor, one-hand-cupped-over-your-mouth kind of sneeze. And yet, somewhere below deck, there's a small but unmistakable uh oh.
Or maybe you laugh at a friend's joke and automatically cross your legs. You see a trampoline at a kid's birthday party and your first thought isn't "oh my God, it's so fun". It's "absolutely not".
Any of that sound familiar? Congratulations. You have a pelvic floor, and it's clearly seen some things.
Meet the most underrated muscle group you own
Nobody puts the pelvic floor on a vision board. It doesn't get a training montage. There's no activewear range named after it (well, yet). But this quiet, unglamorous sling of muscle is doing more unpaid overtime than anybody in your household.
Think of it as a hammock slung between your pelvic bone and your tailbone, holding up your bladder, your bowels and your uterus. It also acts as the bouncer at the door for number ones and, once upon a time, an actual human. It's basically the unpaid intern of your anatomy: it does all the important work, gets none of the credit, and nobody trained it properly before throwing it in the deep end.
Pregnancy and birth asked an extraordinary amount of your hammock, whether you delivered vaginally, by caesarean, or as we like to say, out the sunroof. Nine months of extra weight, hormonal softening of your connective tissue and the main event itself can leave it feeling more like a stretched-out old singlet. It doesn't mean it's broken. It just means it's been through a genuine athletic event and nobody gave it a medal.
The numbers don't lie (even if your bladder might)
Here's where we get a little bit serious, because the stats are honestly more validating than any group chat full of "oh my God, same".
1 in 3
Aussies over 15 live with incontinence
33%
of new mums leak in the first 3 months
2x
more common in women than men (lucky us)
The most significant figure: 1 in 3 women who have ever had a baby will experience incontinence at some point.
Zooming out to international research from 2023 to 2025, pooled data suggests around 33% of women experience some form of urinary incontinence in the first three months postpartum, with roughly 12% leaking weekly and 3% daily. Vaginal births roughly double the odds compared with caesarean (about 31% versus 15%). Broader pelvic floor dysfunction, meaning incontinence, prolapse and pelvic pain together, affects somewhere between 1 in 4 and 1 in 2 women, depending on age and how many babies they've had.
Translation: if you're still leaking a little when you cough, laugh or attempt a star jump, you are not broken, you are not alone, and you are absolutely not the only mum eyeing off the quiet corner at every kid's party.
Why nobody warned you
Despite this being spectacularly common, bladder leaks after baby have historically been filed under "part of motherhood", passed down like a Tupperware set nobody really wanted. Mentioned in hushed tones by your own mum, maybe joked about at a baby shower, but rarely actually treated.
The good news is this is shifting. Incontinence is now formally recognised as a national women's health priority in Australia, with better access to pelvic floor physiotherapy specifically called out as a goal. It's no longer something you're supposed to quietly manage with beige liners snuck into the supermarket trolley.
What actually helps (spoiler: it's not randomly clenching in the car)
Most of us were told to do our Kegels once, by a random person in scrubs, straight after the most exhausting day of our lives, and never again. Unsurprisingly, research suggests a huge number of women do them incorrectly: clenching the wrong muscles, holding their breath, or bearing down instead of lifting up. A few more useful moves:
-
See a pelvic floor physio
They can check whether your pelvic floor is actually doing its job, rather than you guessing and squeezing in the school pickup line.
-
Connect breath and squeeze
The proper lift works when you exhale, not against it. Think zipping up from back to front, not clenching like you're bracing for a tsunami.
-
Sort out any constipation
Straining on the toilet is basically a deadlift for your pelvic floor, and not the good kind.
-
Build back up gradually
Running, jumping and heavy lifting can wait for proper rehab and the green light from a professional. "It's been six weeks, I should be fine" doesn't really apply.
-
Ditch the guilt
Your body grew and delivered an actual human. Some recalibration is expected, and it's not a personal fail.
But what if I just don't do anything about it?
The honest answer: it's really unlikely to fix itself.
Here's something I wish more women were told. The quicker you get on top of a problem, the quicker you have an understanding of it and a plan to get from where you are to where you need to be.
Ignored leakage tends to stack on itself until it needs bigger interventions: potentially corrective surgery, medication, specialist referrals and lots of input from lots of different people. That costs time and money.
Hormonal changes, constipation, further pregnancies, perimenopause and menopause all add stress to your pelvic floor. Without assessment or management, pelvic floor dysfunction can persist and is likely to become more problematic with age.
But here's the genuinely great news.
I'm not trying to scare you. This is supposed to be motivating. It's all very, very treatable, and you can be proactive. You don't have to tell the group chat, but if something works for you, you might quietly pass it on to a friend.
As women we're really good at looking after others. When it comes to this, how about looking after yourself?
When to get it checked
If leaking, heaviness or "something doesn't feel right down there" is sticking around past the first few months, affecting your day or just bothering you, that's reason enough to see your GP or a pelvic health physio. You don't need to hit some arbitrary severity level to be allowed to ask for help.
Not sure if it's "bad enough" to mention?
It is. If it's on your mind, it matters. A continence assessment takes the guesswork out of it, and most women leave wondering why they waited so long.
The bottom line
Your pelvic floor carried a genuine tenant for nine months, worked overtime during the eviction process, and is now expected to hold everything together indefinitely, with zero recognition, no lunch break and definitely no performance bonus.
So if she's asking for a little rehab, it's not weakness. It's a completely reasonable request from an extremely hardworking muscle group.
Give your pelvic floor the validation it deserves, and maybe an actual check-up too.
Book a continence consultation with Michelle
Ready to do something about it? Michelle offers personalised continence assessments to work out exactly what your pelvic floor needs. No judgement, just practical clinical support.
Book Your ConsultationThis information is general in nature and does not replace individual medical advice. Speak with your GP, pelvic health physio or continence nurse specialist if you have concerns about bladder leakage or pelvic floor health.