Jen Dugard (00:00.822)
Welcome to the Mumsafe Pro podcast. I'm your host, Jen Dugard. And today you've got me for a solo episode. Today I'm talking about why we must get to a point where no woman ever says, why did nobody tell me? And we're to talk about why it's so important and how we actually get there.
If you've worked with mums before or if you've spoken to a woman at any stage of life, you've probably heard her say something along the lines of, why did nobody tell me? I've heard it from women who discovered a prolapse years after giving birth. I've heard it from women who thought that leaking during exercise was just part of mum life and from women entering perimenopause who are told to lift heavy weights without anyone checking if they can safely manage pressure through their core.
and pelvic floor beforehand. I hear it every single time I do a safe return to exercise certification. And I know that our Mumsafe trainers hear it over and over again. Every time I hear it, I feel the weight of our responsibility, not just as exercise professionals, but as an entire system that has failed women for far too long. Let's zoom out for a moment because
This doesn't start when a mum walks into your gym or your training environment. It starts when a girl gets her period for the very first time. She's handed a pad or a tampon, maybe told, this is just part of being a woman, but not given a real education about her cycle, her hormones, or how her body might change through her whole life. That's the first why did nobody tell me moment. Fast forward then to pregnancy.
Actually, no, let's go a little bit before that. Let's say the girl that got her period decides to go and train in a gym. Let's say she lifts heavy for a long time. And instead of learning about her inner core and learning about her pelvic floor, she does exercise that winds up and winds up and winds up her pelvic floor. Maybe she experiences some kind of trauma or endometriosis that has a high correlation to what's what we call a hypertonic pelvic floor.
Jen Dugard (02:17.954)
Let's say she has a hypertonic pelvic floor and she then experiences urine retract infections. Now, someone with a hypertonic pelvic floor is at more at risk of a UTI or recurring UTIs because then potentially not emptying their bladder properly when they go to the bathroom. The urine then stays in the bladder and then becomes susceptible to infection. So this younger, young woman now has a hypertonic pelvic floor that she doesn't know about.
She's getting recurring UTIs and she's being sent to GP gynaecologist back to the GP and taking antibiotics to solve her UTIs. Maybe she also suffers painful sex, but no one's asked her that question and no one's put the two together to say, maybe you've got a hypertonic pelvic floor. Maybe she actually leaks when she does double unders or she's squatting in the gym, which is another sign of a hypertonic pelvic floor. There's a second why did nobody tell me moment.
and she's not even reached pregnancy. Let's fast forward then to pregnancy. And too many women go through birth trauma that I believe may have been able to be prevented if they had been taught properly what was happening to their body. How to prepare their pelvic floor or just given more respectful and clear information about their choices. Why aren't we teaching women about their pelvic floors in their antenatal?
and classes that are provided with learning all about pain relief and our options and things like that in the hospital, but we're not learning about our body and understanding how we can work with it. We're not understanding that maybe we could, or we're not being taught to go to see our pelvic health physiotherapist to see if we have a hypertonic pelvic floor, or even to check our perineal length because perineal length has a high correlation to potential episiotomy. So.
We need to be telling our clients or women of all ages and pregnant women need to understand this information. Pregnancy is another why did nobody tell me moment. Then postpartum, we know that there are no standard universal safe return to exercise guidelines for postpartum women. It's simply not a thing. And so when a woman goes for her six week checkup,
Jen Dugard (04:41.634)
She's not being taught anything about her body. Maybe they're checking, they may check for prolapse. They're checking her abdominal wall to see if it's gone, her uterus has gone back into the right position. But none of those things are checking pelvic floor health, checking for abdominal separation, checking pelvic floor activation, checking transverse abdominis activation or anything about her musculoskeletal system or pelvis.
Jen Dugard (05:08.974)
Our six-week checkup doesn't prepare her to move forward into daily life. She's simply sent on her way being told that she's postpartum normal. And no wonder what many women then end up injured in pain or feeling broken or that they don't understand their body because they've not been informed about their body at this fundamental postpartum checkup.
And then as women, as we head into perimenopause and menopause, the advice that I'm hearing in the marketplace a lot, which is great advice, but it's lift heavy. It'll save your bones. Lay down as much muscle as possible because we need it as we get older, which is all really true, but no one stops to ask, does she even have the foundations to cope with heavy lifting? Because if she wasn't cared for in pregnancy and postpartum, chances are she doesn't. And so once again, down the track.
Maybe when she's experiencing prolapse, she might ask or say, why did nobody tell me? It's really important that we take into consideration that it's not just about the fitness industry. This conversation, it's about our medical systems, our education systems and our societal systems. But here's really, really key. The fitness industry, our exercise professionals are, in my opinion, on the front lines. Women trust us. Women trust.
you. They confide in you more than they might confide in their best friend and that means that we, that you, have a unique opportunity to break the cycle.
Let me share a couple of stories that have stayed with me. There's Sarah, who's not, this is not her real name, but she came to me two years postpartum. She was leaking every time she went for a run. She thought this was her new normal because no doctor or anyone else had explained otherwise. When I asked if she'd ever seen a pelvic health physio, she looked at me completely blankly and said, why did nobody tell me that a pelvic health physio was even a thing?
Jen Dugard (07:11.498)
After a referral and a individualized pelvic floor retraining program, she was back running leak free relatively quickly. Another mom, Emily, came to a boot camp that I used to run six weeks after birth because she was desperate to feel like herself again. She wanted to push hard like she had her pre-baby body, but she was struggling with prolapse symptoms and that she...
hadn't disclosed to me prior to even in a pre-exercise screening, she'd not, let's stop that.
Jen Dugard (07:53.022)
07.
Jen Dugard (08:13.422)
We're gonna come back at 8.30.
Jen Dugard (08:20.64)
or another mum, Emily, who'd gone back to a bootcamp six weeks after birth because she was desperate to feel like herself again. This bootcamp didn't ask her any postpartum questions, so she just pushed hard like she'd always done pre-baby. And a year after, she was struggling with symptoms of a prolapse. When she came to me later on, I asked her if anyone had ever spoken to her about...
know, rebuilding from the inside out or safe progression postpartum. And she said, why did nobody tell me that I couldn't just go straight back into what I was doing beforehand?
All of these stories are really, really common and we have to get to a point where we're not hearing them anymore.
Jen Dugard (09:11.662)
Krish cut that bit out and then come back in here. Sorry, this one's a bit piecemeal.
Unfortunately, these stories aren't rare. There's lots of them out there and they're exactly why we need to keep learning and keep adapting and building our partnerships across the health and fitness industry, across allied health, across the medical industry, and why we as exercise professionals need to make sure that we keep leveling up and starting the conversations that nobody else is having. So why do women keep ending up here? I believe it's because our systems are fragmented.
Doctors and midwives and physios and exercise professionals all play a role, but too often we're not connecting the dots and the woman is left to navigate it all on her own. It's really hard to connect those dots when no one's guiding you. So here's some of the things that we need to change. We need to educate. We need to teach exercise professionals the realities of pregnancy, postpartum, pelvic health, and way beyond that. It needs to not be an optional extra, but a standard.
We need to educate our exercise professionals in our cert threes and fours about what they don't know so that they can then go on and do specific pre and postnatal training and then training in menopause and perimenopause. This is why safe return to exercise exists. It exists so that we can ensure that every exercise professional has a sound, fundamental, general knowledge in working with pre and postnatal mums. Next, we need to really work on collaboration. So,
We can't replace any of the,
Jen Dugard (10:54.456)
Just cut that bit about the collaboration part out, Krish, and then come back in.
Next up, we need to really work on collaboration because there are so many pieces or people that can help to keep our females or our pregnant and postnatal women.
Just cut that bit, let's try again. Next, we need to work on collaboration because every single person plays a vital role in looking after our mums, but we can't do it alone and we can't do it without talking to each other. We have to connect the fitness industry, so exercise professionals, with allied health, with medical professionals. We have to partner with them and build relationships.
Building a relationship with a pelvic health physiotherapist is one of the most powerful things that you can do as an exercise professional that works with moms. Then we need to make sure that we're increasing our ongoing education regularly, because one course isn't enough. One course gives you a really, really good foundation, but research evolves. So does our understanding of women's health. And we, as exercise professionals, have to keep evolving too. That is why MUMsafe exists.
to elevate trainers as the go-to and gold standard of pre and postnatal trainer or exercise professional in the marketplace. Provide that ongoing education that is evidence-based and continually up-to-date. Then we need to make sure that we have integrity in practice every step of the way. And what I mean by this is if you are an exercise professional and you are marketing yourself as somebody that works with moms, you must stand in integrity and deliver on that.
Jen Dugard (12:40.462)
And that means that you must hold a pre and postnatal certification in order to work with the mums that you're marketing to. Just because your classes don't say the words pre and postnatal, if you're advertising to mums, you are working with pre and postnatal women. It's the same thing. A mum is pregnant, she is postpartum, and she's postpartum, and she is a mum until the day that she is no longer with us.
So if you're marketing to either moms or pre and postnatal women, you must hold a pre and postnatal certification. And when I say, I mean, a credible one. So one that has is registered and also holds a decent amount of CECs or PDPs.
When a woman understands or learns to understand her body and what it needs, she feels seen and supported. And I believe that everything changes when she gets to this point. She starts to move without fear. She models strength and resilience to her children and she feels empowered instead of feeling broken. And if we think about it, when one trainer, just one trainer is educated, the ripple effect is huge. Imagine that one trainer works with
50 mums in a year. Those 50 mums then influence their families, their friends, their children. And suddenly it's not just about fitness, it's about generational change. This is why I'm so incredibly passionate about this work because every time a trainer chooses to learn more, chooses to care more and step up, we move closer to a future where no woman ever has to say, why did nobody tell me?
and she is a beacon of support and she leads by example for the women around her and her children. So here's a challenge for you guys as we start to close out today's podcast. Think about the last time that a client said something to you that made you realize she'd been left in the dark. How did it make you feel? Did you think I wish she'd known sooner? I know I think that
Jen Dugard (14:50.026)
all the time. And I see the look in the eyes of women, exercise professionals that do safe return to exercise, and the cogs are turning in their brain and they're putting together all of the dots. And they feel sometimes even worse because they're exercise professionals and they didn't know until they got the education. So I want you to use the not knowing, the wishing she knew sooner and the getting to a point where no woman ever says, did nobody tell me?
as fuel. Use it as fuel to go deeper into your education. Use it as fuel to connect with allied health, with women's health or pelvic health physios. Use it as fuel to raise your standards. Because when you do that, you're not only building a better business and supporting more moms, you're becoming part of the solution and you're helping to break the cycle of women saying, why did nobody tell me?
So we must get to a point where no woman ever has to say, why did nobody tell me? Not about her period, not about pregnancy, not about postpartum, not about perimenopause or menopause, or the whole host of women's health issues that we're not even talking about in today's episode, especially when you look outside the specific fitness industry. I believe that this starts with us. It starts by us choosing to keep learning. It starts by us working together.
and by committing to integrity in how we support women. That's the work of MumSafe and that's the mission of Safe Return to Exercise. And I'd love you to join me in whatever way works for you in making it a reality. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Listening to me in my monologue, share something that is important with me, to me with you.
If this episode has resonated with you in any kind of way, please share it with another trainer or another coach or on your Instagram. And together we can change the conversation for good. I'll go back to my, one of my favorite quotes by Helen Keller, alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. And in our quest to make sure that no woman ever says, why did nobody tell me? It's going to take all of us. I'll talk to you soon.
