Helen Gets a Pessary

04/19/22 • 19 min

It's a big day in Helen's pessary saga! After a year-long wait to be fitted for a vaginal pessary, she's offered a private appointment with a specialist in London.

In this episode, you'll hear what happens at a pessary fitting when Helen visits Tracey Matthews - a women's health physio, former British rower, strong woman, cross fitter and proud pessary wearer. She's passionate about the benefits of pessaries when it comes to helping women with pelvic organ prolapse or incontinence and walks Helen through an assessment. Helen leaves with a cube...but will her pelvic floor be up to the task?

Tracey talks about the shock of discovering her own prolapse after the birth of her first child, her decision to specialise in pessaries and why it's so important to end the stigma around them:

We've got to shout about it and make it so that it's not a taboo...and pessaries aren't a taboo. I fit more pessaries in postnatal and younger women than I do in anybody over 60.

HUGE thanks to Tracey Matthews who is @prolapsestrength Instagram and part of the team at White Hart Clinic in London

For an easy guide to vaginal pessaries, read this blog

For more pessary chat listen to last seasons episode Vaginal Pessaries: A Deep Dive

Check out the new UK guidelines for patients and clinicians, which were mentioned in this episode

For more information about 3D printed pessaries of the future (!) go here

To see a video of a pessary fitting with Tracey go here

It's a big day in Helen's pessary saga! After a year-long wait to be fitted for a vaginal pessary, she's offered a private appointment with a specialist in London.

Tracey talks about the shock of discovering her own prolapse after the birth of her first child, her decision to specialise in pessaries and why it's so important to end the stigma around them:

We've got to shout about it and make it so that it's not a taboo...and pessaries aren't a taboo. I fit more pessaries in postnatal and younger women than I do in anybody over 60.

HUGE thanks to Tracey Matthews who is @prolapsestrength Instagram and part of the team at White Hart Clinic in London

For an easy guide to vaginal pessaries, read this blog

For more pessary chat listen to last seasons episode Vaginal Pessaries: A Deep Dive

Check out the new UK guidelines for patients and clinicians, which were mentioned in this episode

For more information about 3D printed pessaries of the future (!) go here

To see a video of a pessary fitting with Tracey go here

Previous Episode

Elaine Miller (Gusset Grippers)

Helen is joined by Elaine Miller (aka Gusset Grippers) - a fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and award winning comedian who's on a mission to tackle your pelvic floor...whilst making you laugh, which sounds counterintuitive but actually makes perfect sense!

They discuss the long-standing evidence behind kegels for stress incontinence (and for prolapse), why pelvic floor problems are a feminist issue and how using humour really can change lives.

Elaine is @gusset_grippers on Instagram

Tickets for Elaine's show at the Edinburgh Fringe are available here
You can find a 60 second pelvic floor squeeze-along here

Next Episode

Niki's Story

Diastasis recti is where the muscles that run down the middle of your stomach separate during pregnancy. It's really common and usually goes back to normal within eight weeks of delivery, but sometimes it doesn't. And it can lead to back problems and hernia - both things that Niki Odogwu has been dealing with since her daughters were born, as well as stress urinary incontinence.

In this episode, Niki tells Helen how her back troubles got to the point where she couldn't get out of bed and how a postpartum fitness programme changed everything - helping her to manage her back pain and strengthen her pelvic floor. They discuss how a lack of information leaves women in the dark about our own bodies and why we need to do better at postpartum care:

We don't focus on ourselves and our own care. It's like we don't matter. And as women we need to get out of that mindset and stop feeling that by looking after ourselves, we're being selfish mums, or we should be putting everything into the children, or this is the price you pay for having children. It shouldn't be like that.

You can find more information about Diastasis Recti here and here

The postpartum fitness programme MUTU System* is here

*This is not an ad, Why Mums Don't Jump has no affiliation with MUTU System.