MyMaine Birth

109. MyMaine Birth: Dr. Meaghan Staples shares her Two Maine Birth Stories and The Benefits of Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy

• Angela Laferriere • Season 3 • Episode 109

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Are you a soon to be mom, a seasoned mother, or simply interested in the world of birth?  You’re in the right place! 

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Breech birth options 
  • Cesarean Birth in Maine at Northern Light EMMC in Bangor, and also at MDI Hosptial 
  • Doula support in Maine
  • Meaghan's journey to specializing in Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy 
  • ….and a whole lot more!

You can find more about Dr. Meaghan Staples by visiting her website   https://www.refinephysicaltherapy.com/

You can also Connect with Dr. Meag over on Instagram or Facebook, her handle is  @refine.physicaltherapy  

Dr. Meag offers complimentary consultation calls for anyone who is interested in her services.  Send her an email to set up a free call with her  info@refinephysicaltherapy.com 


Additional Resources you’ll LOVE…

If you are ready to prepare for an autonomous birth experience, where you’re respected as the authority over your body and your baby…  regardless of where or how you plan on birthing -
CLICK HERE for 10% off  the MyAutonomous Birth self-paced, online course! 


Not sure where to start?  I’ve got you covered!  Check out my FREE resource, 37 Questions to Ask Your Care Provider.   Whether you’re interviewing new providers or have already established care, this FREE resource offers guidance on important topics to discuss with your provider. 

Angela:

So I was exploring your website, refinephysicaltherapycom before our call today, and I came across your blog, which I thought had a lot of really great posts about some good topics that don't get talked about enough.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Oh, thank you. Yeah, you know what? I get a lot of my ideas just from stuff that people ask me about. I'm like, oh yeah, I should. You're probably not the only one that's wondering about it. Yeah, I feel like those are questions that people don't realize that there actually might be some answers to as well. Like they, this is definitely a subject that we tend to not tell anybody about. Or maybe you've been to your doctor before and they just kind of are like you're, eh, you're going through menopause, and then it kind of gets brushed to the side when when really there are a lot of deeper root causes to to these things.

Angela:

I'm Angela, and I'm a certified birth photographer, experienced doula, childbirth educator and your host here on the my Main Birth podcast. This is a space where we share the real-life stories of families and their unique birth experiences in the beautiful state of Maine, From our state's biggest hospitals to birth center births and home births. Every birth story deserves to be heard and celebrated. Whether you're a soon-to-be mom, a seasoned mother or simply interested in the world of birth, these episodes are for you. Welcome back. You're listening to episode 109 of the my Main Birth podcast, and today's birth story guest is Dr Megan Staples. She is a mom of two, an orthopedic and pelvic floor physical therapist, as well as a spinning babies aware practitioner and birth coach. She is the owner of Refine Physical Therapy, which is located in Bangor, Maine. All right, let's get to it. Hi, Dr Meg. Welcome to my Maine Birth. Hello, Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I feel like it's really important to bring more awareness to the topic of pelvic floor physical therapy.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yes, oh my gosh, I know this is definitely like a subject that I feel like a lot of women just don't talk about, so it's good for us to talk, yes.

Angela:

So, to get started, will you share a little bit about you and your family?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, so my name's Megan and I'm actually originally from Minnesota, but I ended up out here in Maine because I was doing travel physical therapy at the time and I got sent to Lincoln and then that's I don't know. I was here with a friend and we would go out and yeah, that's where I met my husband, just when we were living in Bangor, and then I never left. So here I am, a transplant out here, but it's been really good. I have got two kiddos. So Natalie is four and a half now and Connor is. He'll be two in July. So I feel like I've got. My hands are kind of full right now, but it's been, it's been fun and what else, oh yeah.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

And then I, you know, just since my pregnancy with Natalie is when I first got interested in pelvic floor health she, she ended up being breech and I was just looking for some alternative ways that I could help to flip her Cause I really didn't want to do the you know, more aggressive, like when they physically turn them, like at the doctors. I'm blanking on what the? Yeah, I was like I am not doing that, I just I didn't feel good about it, but yeah, but when I was looking around here I couldn't really find. I nobody had any answers that were very satisfying for me, so I figured I'd go out and learn more for myself.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

And then in 2021 is when I opened my business, and I just didn't. I didn't like being inside the insurance-based practice. I just felt like I wasn't giving the quality of care that I really wanted to be able to give to people. So, yeah, so I ended up opening my own clinic. It's called Refined Fiscal Therapy. Right now I'm located in CrossFit Bangor. I just have like a private room in the back here and, yeah, and it's been really good. I love my clients now and everybody's like so passionate and motivated about women's health things and I am too so I could like just talk about it all day, but anyways, so, yeah, I guess that's a little bit about me.

Angela:

So you're a spinning babies practitioner also, right?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yes, yeah, love spinning babies. Yeah, I would say, like pelvic floor wise, I like, I liked the pelvic floor classes that I took, but I always again I felt like there was something else, I was missing. So then I started looking into spinning babies, which is more taught by, like the midwives and the doulas, and I was like, wow, this is such a rich experience to learn from. And so, yeah, I do, I kind of take a lot of different pieces into my work, but, yes, I do like the spinning babies.

Angela:

Cool, yeah. So to get started with your first birth story, will you share a little bit about how you found out you're pregnant and what your thoughts were in choosing your care?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Oh my gosh. I feel like everybody remembers, especially with that first one, where you're like, oh my gosh, I'm pregnant, Like is this even real? And then it's like your life flashes before your eyes of like nothing will ever be the same again. Yeah, that's how it was for me. I just remember being in our, in our bedroom, and then my husband walked downstairs, like you know, two seconds after I, you know, had the test and he was like Is that what I think it is? And yeah, he was like no way. I didn't think we would be that, lucky Cause we really didn't have any issues getting pregnant, but anyways, yeah it was, it was. I haven't thought about that moment in a long time. I remember going to the gym afterwards and I was like on the elliptical and I'm just like I have a secret and nobody knows, type of thing. Oh, yeah yeah, yeah.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

And then so I decided, where did we go? We went to. That was back when Dr Smith was still in practice, so that's the practice that we went to. And Natalie that's my first. She was breached the whole, pretty much the whole time, like even at the 20 week ultrasound. Um, I remember the ultrasound lady being like, oh, she's already breached and she's like, oh, but she'll probably turn. And I'm like, okay, and then I kind of you know, I'm a little bit more aware of this just from having the pt background. But so then I started noticing I'm like she doesn't really like move that much, like her head head is is just stuck in my left rib basically, and she never really deviated from that positioning. So then I now, looking back, I'm like, yeah, I could have used the spinning baby's body work, but it was not available to me at the time. So yeah, so then I ended up. I really wanted to have like a natural birth. I wanted to do at the time. So, yeah. So then I ended up. I really wanted to have like a natural birth. I wanted to do all the different positionings, I wanted to not have the epidural, but then it was like our 38 week appointment she was still breech and again she never moved position and then just like out here especially in the US and Maine in general like the breach deliveries aren't. I just didn't feel comfortable about that either. Like I know that there is a way to deliver breach safely, but I think it really depends on the confidence that your practitioner has. And so I just didn't feel I was not going to do it. So we scheduled the C-section. So I just didn't. I was like no, not going to do it. So we scheduled the C-section. And you know, at first when we made that decision it was really hard. But now, looking back at how the C-section went, I had prepared with the hypnobirthing and I did all the meditations and I thought that that was actually really helpful going into like the surgery and I was super calm and I just it was actually a very peaceful, it was a. It was a peaceful c-section. So I'm happy about that. And I just remember when she came out she wasn't crying and the doctors were like, oh my gosh, is she okay? And I'm like she's fine. I even knew back then I was like she's fine, she just she knows that I'm calm, she's fine. I even knew back then I was like she's fine, she just she knows that I'm calm, like I could just sense that she knew that and yeah. And then they brought her over and put her on my chest and and yeah, it was. I mean I had to recover from that and good thing I know PT and we do a lot of like scar mobility, cause I worked pretty hard on getting my scar after that to move well and my abs came back nicely. But yeah, honestly, overall that was a pretty good C-section, even though it just wasn't what I wanted. But again, the breech deliveries over here, which I think in the future that's going to be a thing that more and more practitioners are comfortable with. But it's a very specific way that the midwives and the practitioners would need to know and kind of a language around that too was like well, we could do it, but you'll probably just get an emergency C-section anyways. And so even with that being worded like that, I'm like nope, we're just going to do the planned one and call it a day. So at the time, you know, I do think it was the right decision. Maybe again, maybe in the future, these breach deliveries won't be as big of a deal, and just because our OBGs will have that training, but we're just definitely not there yet. It's so hard, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that the um I want to say to say I actually I don't know where these group of clinicians are from. I almost want to say like somewhere in Europe, like France or something. But anyways, they recently did a training in Bangor called Breach Without Borders.

Angela:

Yes, at the birth center and all the midwives went to it, which I think is so cool, but still it's like, it's against, like their licensure, so you can't go to them if you have a breech baby, but if you're under their care and you have a surprise breech baby, they have these skills.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Oh my gosh, I know it's, it's wild, it's like this doesn't even make sense.

Angela:

Yeah, yeah. I mean it is great that they're at least learning these skills. That is so cool, but it's sad they can't use them. Yeah.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

I know, I totally agree. Yeah, there's a I should share this Instagram account with you. But she is a midwife and she like specializes in breech and twin natural births and she's got so many great like videos and images of of these breach births happening and I'm like, oh my gosh, like this is like beautiful that she's sharing this and how it can actually be just like a normal birthing experience. I mean, obviously, like on the midwife and OB perspective. They're like your what if? People, so they need to know all these what if? Things in case they do happen.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

And there are obviously some very specific what ifs with that presentation. But, yeah, I've watched some of her videos and the way that she talks about it. It's like, oh, that makes sense, that makes sense, Like one of the things she says. It's like if the chin is up, like extended upward, and like the head's not coming through, then you don't want to put your hands up in the vaginal canal because that's not going to help baby come out, but what you do is you put your hands on the baby's chest and that'll help bring that chin back down so the head can come out.

Angela:

And I'm like, oh my gosh, like wait, more people need to know about stuff like this. I would love if it would go in that direction for sure, because it is so hard for moms that that have breech babies. There's really almost no choice. Like it's like okay, you can schedule your C-section or you can schedule your C-section.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Like what other thing can you have?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

things and that's how I got really interested in spinning babies, because they do a lot of this like breach positioning, to do like prior to birth as well as um.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

I ended up taking their like what do they call it? It's like aware practitioner course, um, where I learned all this different body work around the there's a bunch of different ligaments of the uterus and like your hip flexors and low back and rib cage and thighs, like all of that connective tissue that just surrounds the womb, can get tight and restricted and then therefore baby only has enough space to, you know, be in whatever space is available. So if there is tightness or restriction they might just get kind of stuck in that breach position. But if, in theory, if you can open it up through the body work, then and then do the specific breach positionings, like a forward lean inversion is a classic one that I feel like a lot of people know about these days, you know, just to get that head pointing down into the pelvis. Yeah, I've actually had quite a few or not quite a few, but I've had a handful. I've had two of them where their babies did flip out of the maybe three or four that I've had in the breach.

Angela:

So I don't know, that's just you know. You never know what's going on in there, what's right for them, but like, and there's also those babies that are in there and are just like you know, kind of like you said, in that tightness, and just need a little help getting into the ideal position and and that's so cool yeah, yeah, and that's what I tell the moms too.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

I'm like, if it is from a tightness or restriction, like the baby will likely flip with these techniques, but there's also the placenta and the cord that we can't ever know really much about and at that point it's out of our hands and you'll leave this experience knowing that you did the best that you could and, yeah, and your baby, regardless. I believe that your baby can feel how much you just care about them and care about this, and that in itself is something worth noting too.

Angela:

Absolutely yeah, that's so true and definitely should not be overlooked. So how was your postpartum then recovering after your daughter?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

My daughter. Not bad, I, you know. I'm like I don't know if it was just because she was my first baby and I was, you know, 26 years old. I feel like I bounced back. It wasn't until the second one where I was like, even now I'm like, I still don't feel. I still don't feel a hundred percent, even though I teach people pelvic floor exercises every day.

Angela:

Yeah. So to get into your second birth story when did you find out you were pregnant for the second time and what were your thoughts in choosing your care?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, so Connor Natalie was about two years old and so we were kind of like this is going to be a good timing and again, I've never had any issues getting pregnant. So it was kind of like, oh, maybe we should get pregnant. And then, boom, we were pregnant. And I'm trying to think now so that was when. So his, his whole pregnancy and birth was a lot more intense than my little breach, which actually I will side note. My little breach baby, who refused to turn, is also like the most independent, bossy little lady I've ever met. So I think that's just how she was in the womb and that's how she is now.

Angela:

There might be something to that. Yes.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, oh, my gosh. Literally like two days ago she told me she was like wearing a baseball hat and she was like whoever wears this baseball hat is the boss. That means I'm the boss. I was like okay.

Angela:

Oh, that's adorable.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

I still think Connor he'll be two in July. My husband was away on military training for about six months of my pregnancy, so it was probably like two months to seven or eight months is when he was gone, Like he just like wasn't even here. Um, oh yeah, and I forgot to mention to both my kids I had gestational diabetes, so that was another hurdle to have them. You know, not that it was horrible, but just that extra planning that you got to do to make sure that you're checking your blood sugars and eating protein filled snacks and meal prepping which I'm not very good at that stuff anyways and then at a two year old being pregnant and then no husband around, it was kind of a I like feel like I barely even remember his pregnancy. It was so, so busy, oh, and I was like running my business. It was crazy.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

But I will say, during his pregnancy, that's really when I was like I think I'm going to specialize in pelvic floor, Like I had been interested in it with Natalie's birth, but I kind of thought it was just because I was experiencing it and I thought it was just like a phase that I was going to get over. And then by the time Connor came around, I was like, no, I'm actually like super passionate about this and I like really want to learn more. So that's when I was like, no, I'm actually like super passionate about this and I like really want to learn more. So that's when I was pregnant with him, I took, like I don't know, five different pelvic floor classes. So it was great, Cause it's like all this body work for like the pregnant belly and I had the pregnant belly and um, so yeah, it was. It was just a really good experience and I feel like that helps me as a clinician too, Cause it's like I remember how that body work felt when I was also pregnant and then so I wanted to do a VBAC.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Gosh, I started off at Northern light, decided I didn't want to do that, Cause even on like the first visit that I went to them, they were like, well, we kind of do VBACs, but we'll probably have to induce you and I'm like I'm like 20 weeks pregnant. I'm like I don't want to like what you don't know. You've never, you haven't even looked at my chart. It's like in the first five minutes of you even meeting me, you never asked me anything about what I wanted either. So, anyways, got out of there, ended up going down to MDI and Bar Harbor, Cause I had heard that the at the the time the midwives down there, they had a really good team, which I agree, and then they all left and now MDI is no more, which is crazy, I know. So sad.

Angela:

Yeah, I can't believe that. It's wild how fast they're closing.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, oh my gosh, it's just like I feel like I saw it on Facebook and I was like, oh my gosh, like, and not just MDI, but then it's like Belfast and somewhere in Augusta too, right yeah, waterville.

Angela:

and then the week after MDI announced, holton announced that they were closing too, which is really crazy too, because there's like a 200 mile like maternity care desert Presque Isle to Bangor.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

But yeah, Wow, oh my God, that is yeah, that's wild. Oh, I wonder how Bangor is doing now, because there's not even that many options in Bangor either.

Angela:

Yeah, it's really the only yeah. There's the one doctor's office and the other one is a private office that I think. At last I heard they were full.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, I bet they are full.

Angela:

It's crazy, but how was your experience at MDI?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Oh my gosh. So Connor's birth was hard. My water broke and he was head down and I'm like, okay, no big deal. It was on my due date that his water broke and I had been. And I'm like, okay, no big deal. Um, it was on my due date that his water broke and I had been. And I was like you know what, I'm going to start pumping. So I did that and literally while I was pumping the is when my water broke, which I'm like that's probably. I'm like, no, no, I'm looking back, I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. But in my mind I was like like, okay, like it's his due date, we can kind of, you know, get things started or whatever.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

And again, I had been doing a lot of prenatal prep, with just all the body work I've been getting done and my own like clinical knowledge of prenatal positional prep and stuff like that. But anyways, I could even just tell it was like my water broke and I was like, oh, was that it? Like it was like super anti-climatic. And so I call my husband and now we this is in the summertime, so Natalie goes to grandma and grandpa's house and then my husband drives and I drive down to MDI and I'm just walking in and I'm like I'm I'm in labor and they're like are you? I'm like I don't know my water broke and every once in a while my belly gets kind of tight. They're like, okay, so I go up to the I don't know the, the room like the, where they're gonna check me out, and they're like, wow, you are not dilated in any way, shape or form, like why don't you get a hotel, stay the night and then come back in the morning? And so that's what we did. We went out to eat. I went through a bunch of pads, cause it was like kind of a lot.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Um, when my water broke and uh, and I was like Cody, like nothing's really happening, and like we went on a walk. You know, I did a bunch of you know just movements and stuff, and it kind of kicked in a little bit, like I had what I would imagine is like early, early labor, where the belly just gets really tight and it kind of feels like period cramps, but just turned up a couple notches and then it just never progressed. So then I went back in in the morning. They're like yeah, your cervix still hasn't dilated and it's been 24 hours, so we're gonna do the C section. And I was like, oh my God, I made it all this way, you know, trying to do the V back. His head is down and anyways, on the heart rate monitor, I mean they did say that it looked like during the contractions that I was having that his heart rate was de-selling a little bit.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

But now, looking back, it was like I was just sitting in bed and maybe I should have gotten into a couple of different positions, like that's what me now would have directed myself to do. But I was still pretty new with birth knowledge back then because I was still learning. But yeah, so, yeah, I ended up getting another C-section. But you know what? It was a Saturday and it felt like everybody just wanted to leave. So it just got done real quick. It was fast, it was kind of aggressive.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

My body did not heal very well from that. Like my lower abdomen is still like bloated, my scar is not was like double the size of what it was with Natalie. Yeah, I had a lot of pain after that C-section, like probably for a good three weeks. And yeah, and I just remember after that one I was like, oh my gosh, I just spent thousands of dollars learning how to do pelvic floor therapy and I just I felt like I failed is really what happened.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

So I was kind of in that headspace for a really long time, cause I really in my heart, really truly believed that having a, you know, a beautiful birth, beautiful natural birth, is possible, which it totally is. It just, you know, it just didn't happen for me and yeah, so I don't know how it took. I think emotionally it took its toll too. I'm okay now. Um, I think it helped that I had a lot of clients. Um, like, I started working again just short hours when Connor was only like eight weeks, but everybody that was coming in to see me was like totally invested in the pregnancy and birth. So I got to tell that story a lot and I think just retelling that story over and over again until it lost its power over me was really nice. And so now when I retell it, I'm like, yeah, I don't know what happened. Now I have two crazy little kids that I chase around and love so dearly.

Angela:

Yeah, I think that's a really good point that you bring up that. A lot of times we can feel like a failure after our birth if it doesn't go the way that we had wanted it to, and that's so far from the truth. She's also a pelvic physical therapist in Bucksport oh cool.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, so we connected because we're like on the same page, like treatment wise, and she also does the doula work, so she was there at my birth, which was so nice. Like obviously I thought that she was going to help me with a VBAC, but just having her there Cause when with the C-section it was like my husband and Connor were in a different room for a while and then I was by myself and I would have been by myself had Casey not been there but like just having her there, I just I really, really liked that support. So, yeah, kind of something to think about if you do, if anybody does end up getting a C-section for whatever reason, it is nice to have another person there.

Angela:

They'll have a doula, Be with you and help you. Just to you know, understand, like all the things that are going on and yeah cause there's like a lot of like.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

It's just it's it's more medical. Obviously there's a lot more like medications going in your body which I mean not that I'm like a huge fan of, but I was like I have to take these because otherwise I will like it. It's going to be so painful. I will not be okay. I won't be able to take care of this baby if I don't take the pain meds. Yeah, it's going to be so painful I will not be okay.

Angela:

I won't be able to take care of this baby if I don't take the pain meds yeah, it's a hard, like double-edged sword, compromising on some of the things that you really didn't want, but you kind of have to.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

You know, to heal and yep, and now I feel like I have just I got over the the thought that I'm failure. I got over that. I was like that, like no, and I think it's probably because I told enough people where they were like no, like what you just told me helped me so much in my own birth and I'm like, oh, thank God, like I. Just, you know, for some reason I just thought if I didn't have this experience I wasn't going to be able to help other women with it. But now what I what I really really like doing is I do a lot of prenatal prep where we're doing the body work to help with fetal positioning and it helps with, like pregnancy aches and pains, making sure that moms are like standing correctly so that they don't accidentally give themselves that pancake flat butt because they're not using their butt muscles anymore, so important.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

And then I also have been doing a lot of like prenatal prep where the birth partner will come in. Usually it's the husband, so like, he'll get in and I'll teach him. I'll, you know, make him put his hands on her in like different positions that will help to, you know, like hip squeezes and tailbone slides, and I even teach him specifically how you, how do do a back massage to help with the contraction pain and to help with the fetal positioning? And I'm press start practicing this all now. Just start start doing it now. And the moms are like, oh, his homework is to get me a massage. I'm like, yes, and, and so I.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

I think that's been helpful for my clients. That's the feedback that I've gotten so far is like the guy feeling a little bit less displaced in the whole situation, um, and a little bit more connected with what's happening, because I do think that the guys get a little bit pushed off to the side. Yet I really believe that they have a really important role in just helping mom to. It's almost like as mothers we help regulate our kids' nervous systems. When we're calm, then they can be calm too. Kind of the same with the partner in that situation, like if he can help mommy regulate her nervous system, then that baby's going to come out so much more smooth.

Angela:

Yeah, and so I love that. So do you do classes for couples or is it sort of more just one-on-one?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yep, so far it's been one-on-one. I don't necessarily have the space to do multiple people, but yeah, so they'll get that one-on-one attention and I'll I'll put my hands on his and make sure that he's got the pressure right and he's using the right, you know, aspect of his hand, and they love it. Like I feel like the guys are a little bit more like mechanically minded. So I get my pelvis out and I like show him how the pelvic bones move. And he's like, oh, this makes sense. And I'm like, yeah, it does, like that's great. And then sometimes the mom is like, are you getting this? And he's like, oh, yeah, I got it, like I understand exactly what she's talking about. And then the moms are like, okay, good Cause, that was a little over my head, wow.

Angela:

That's amazing. So you do a lot of prep with families before the birth.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, I do have a fair amount of people Like it's like ladies will reach out when they're pregnant, either like they want to make sure they're doing safe exercise or they just like really want to prepare and learn about birth as much as possible. Um, I do tend to attract the ones that would prefer to not have epidurals, um and and yeah. So then I do the partner prep, which is probably what I would call the birth coaching stuff, basically teaching your, your partner, how to be your birth coach, so that when you, when you get to the big day, it's like you've already had that practice time together, so it it flows a little bit more naturally. Um. And then I do some postpartum recovery stuff, cause obviously your pelvic floor and core you know they just get stretched out for nine months because they're supporting a growing baby and they just need to be retrained in a specific way so that you're not accidentally putting too much pressure down into the pelvic floor and that can cause things like back pain, hip pain, the diastasis which is like that, ab separation, bladder leakage, prolapse issues. So the postpartum recovery is a lot of avoiding those things.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

But I do see a lot of women who have those things and then we're fixing and addressing them. So I would say most of my clients are probably between the ages of like 25 and up to maybe like 60 is usually the people that I'm helping. And yeah, I do help a decent amount of women who are like oh, I didn't even know that you were supposed to do anything after having babies Like I had my babies 17 years ago is all hope lost? I'm like, no, no, I'm so glad you're here, like we will address all these things and get you back to being functional again.

Angela:

Yeah, even issues that have been going on for a long time. I feel like that was yeah, like. I had never heard of a pelvic floor therapist after my first birth. That was like hard and yeah, it wasn't until you started doing like the doula stuff that I was like. Oh, pelvic floor therapy Like why did nobody tell me about this after my birth?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Oh, my gosh. I seriously it blows my mind Like anything in the Euro gyno region. Like I have had clients too that have started reaching out to me because they're like I'm going to get a hysterectomy but I'm concerned about my pelvic floor health and I'm like let's get you in for some prehab, let's get you in after your surgery, because I mean we do that in every other part of the body. Like you get a knee surgery and you get you know PT to like help strengthen around your knee. Kind of the same thing with having babies. Like you're, you will not not have a baby without having some sort of core or pelvic floor changes and they just need to be rehabbed and retrained. I tell everybody I'm like every woman needs a pelvic floor physical therapist.

Angela:

Yeah, that's what it seems like. I feel like the more I learn about it.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, it's always like so surprising for clients when they come in and they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that that's where that issue was coming from. But now that you're like touching that muscle, that makes sense why I'm feeling this way or I'm having the symptom. So it's really like insightful for the ladies that come in and I don't know, I have a lot of fun teaching it too.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yeah, well, that always like helps when you're working with somebody who's really passionate about it oh yeah, I'm like constantly like I just am that personality type where I probably have like five different books open all at once and yeah, so I'm like constantly reading about really anything. But a lot of it is like pelvic floor related, birth related, hormone related, because I think that's interesting and nobody understands women's of. It is like pelvic floor related, birth related, hormone related, because I think that's interesting and nobody understands women's hormones.

Angela:

It seems like yeah, I feel like in the natural birth communities there's a lot of focus on the hormonal blueprint of birth and just the idea or notion that you should just always trust birth and that it will always unfold to the way it's supposed to. But sometimes there's more to it than that, and I think the biomechanical process of birth is something that really deserves more attention.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yes, and that's a lot of what I teach in the partner prep classes.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

That I'll do with people is like get the husband on the same page of like.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

If you can kind of figure out where baby's head is, if they're above in the or like above the pelvis, in the pelvis or coming out of the pelvis, based on those three things, then you can be very deliberate and how you know you're helping her move her ankle so that her hip is rotated a certain way, because you would lift the ankle up at the end of birth but you might lift the knee up at the beginning of birth.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

So it's stuff like that. Or at the beginning of the birth you're probably going to have more success in a more like hip extension, walking upright type of position and then as you get down into like in the birth canal and coming out, you might be better in like the quadruped position or sideline or like a running lunge where you're getting the pelvic floor to open up. So that's all the stuff that I teach them when they come into the to the classes. And again, I have all my models too. So I'm so visual that I yeah, they leave having a good picture in their mind of what the heck is going on.

Angela:

That's so good and so helpful. I think it. Yeah, just like being prepared in any way that you can. It feels right to you Like just learn about what's going to happen to you, like in the birth experience, and that just helps you go, you know, through the whole thing smoother yeah, yeah, that's so true, like they're just kind of having a little bit of an idea of what to expect and what these different sensations mean too.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Oh, actually, that's. The other thing that I do with clients is like with the pelvic exam. It's an internal exam where we're assessing the pelvic floor muscles and a lot of times women don't know how to relax them very well and that is what they need to learn in order to have their pelvis open up and give birth. Like it's more of like the pelvic floor needs to relax. It doesn't need to tighten up. I would argue that most people overuse their pelvic floor and that's where we get the weak butt muscles. So it's like if you can relearn how to use your butt muscles so you're not overusing your pelvic floor, then your pelvic floor will have more flexibility to then be able to be relaxed and it'll be easier for you to for the baby to come out.

Angela:

So don't do Kegels to prepare for birth.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

No, no. They literally like do the opposite, get that to go down, not up, cause you might be just making a tight muscle even tighter, which is not helping anything. Out of all of the women that I have seen and evaluated, I can think of two that have, but that probably could have used just the Kegel trainer to get more tension into those muscles too. Otherwise everybody else has been like, wow, that's surprisingly really tense and tight and hurts and it doesn't feel good.

Angela:

and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm glad you're here yeah, if you're doing something and it's like hurting or not feeling good, that's usually a pretty good red flag to stop doing that thing.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

I think that's the sneaky thing, though, about pelvic floor is like you don't know. A lot of women don't realize or know until they get the assessment. And then it's like oh, because it's like we have such a hard time perceiving those muscles, because I know who talks about pelvic floor muscles. Like you know, you don't get taught that in school or how to contract them well, or even like one of the first things I'll have clients do is like sit on their hands. I'm like you're sitting on your pelvic floor, like can you feel that? Like can you, can you get it to move up and down? Can you start mapping that in your mind of what those muscles even feel like? Because so many women just don't have they've like oh, I've never thought about it like that before.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

So I had a client come in the other day that was like well, I know I needed to come in because somebody told me to, but I can't help but wonder if this is just like a fad, because I keep seeing it on instagram, you know, if it's just like some marketing trend, I don't know. I kind of chuckled. I was like yeah, there is a lot of just not of superficial stuff out there, but the beauty is there's. There's a decent amount of pelvic floor pts, although maybe not so much in Maine. There's not a whole lot in Bangor.

Angela:

I know, I know there's not very many like up north even.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Also, I wonder if you get a lot of people like coming down from from there but I had I know that there is a lady in preskyle because she actually reached out to me because she was going to be gone and she had a client that really wanted to continue and and she reached out to me. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm like hours away from Presque Isle, but yeah.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Um, yeah, so yeah, up North I'm not. Yeah, I know there's at least one, but beyond that, yeah, I know it's, it's hard, it's. This is a definitely a specialty that's just now starting to become more and more common within the PT community. Even like five to 10 years ago, there was not very many pelvic health providers very few and far between.

Angela:

So would you share a little bit more about how we can find you?

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yes, so I um, I have a pretty active Instagram, so you can follow me if you like Instagram, or actually on Facebook too. It's at refine R E FN-E dot physical therapy. Otherwise, I do have. I have a website that's got a lot of blog posts on it as well, and that's refinedphysicaltherapycom, and if you have any questions, I do free phone consultations that are usually like 20 to 30 minutes in length. So if you do have any questions and think that you might need the service, I'd love to talk to you about it.

Angela:

So I was exploring your website, refinephysicaltherapycom before our call today, and I came across your blog, which I thought had a lot of really great posts about some good topics that don't get talked about enough.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Oh, thank you. Yeah, you know what? I get a lot of my ideas just from stuff that people ask me about. I'm like oh yeah, I should. You're probably not the only one that's wondering about it. Yeah, I feel like those are questions that people don't realize that there actually might be some answers to as well. Like they, this is definitely a subject that we tend to not tell anybody about. Or maybe you've been to your doctor before and they just kind of are like you're pregnant or you're going through menopause, and then it kind of gets brushed to the side when when really there are a lot of deeper root causes to to these things yeah, it's like when you start looking into it yourself, you find that there is support for you out here, but like nobody's really telling you about it.

Angela:

So this is us telling you about it.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yes, this is us telling you about it.

Angela:

Oh, I love it. Well, I'm going to link all of your information so people can find you in the show notes. And yeah, it was just such a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much for coming on, and taking the time.

Dr. Meaghan Staples:

Yes, thank you so much. I've had fun.

Angela:

Before you go, I just want to remind you I have a ton of resources for pregnancy and birth. If you're pregnant, whether you're a first time mom or if this is your fifth baby, I want you to check out the show notes, because I have some free trainings and free downloads that you can sign up for, as well as the link to access my labor of love, a comprehensive, self-paced online childbirth education course. I created this course specifically for moms who don't want to be told what to do, regardless of where you're birthing or who you're birthing with, and I'd honestly love to teach you everything that I know so that you can prepare for an autonomous birth experience and prepare to step into your role as the leader of your birth journey. So click to the show notes, check out all of those links and, if you ever have any questions, feel free to DM me at mymainbirth over on Instagram.