Women's Health & Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy

Leaking when you sneeze. A pelvis that aches by mid-afternoon at twenty-six weeks. A body that ran comfortably last year and now feels borrowed.

Women's health physiotherapy takes these things seriously, and treats them. Laura Scott works with pregnancy and postpartum bodies, pelvic floors, pelvic pain and the long tail of injuries that too often go unmentioned.

Almost none of it is inevitable, and very little of it is too late to address.

What women's health physiotherapy actually covers

The pelvic floor is a sling of muscle doing quiet, constant work: supporting your organs, controlling your bladder and bowel, contributing to sex, absorbing load every time you cough or lift a toddler. Like any muscle group it can be weak, or too tight, or poorly coordinated, and each of those needs a different approach. That's the point of assessment rather than a generic set of exercises.

Laura Scott completed her physiotherapy training at La Trobe and a Graduate Certificate in Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne. Her appointments are unhurried, and consent-led throughout: internal assessment is often the most informative option, but it's always your decision, and there are external alternatives.

Through pregnancy

Pregnancy changes load, posture and ligament laxity, sometimes quickly. Physiotherapy can help with:

• Pelvic girdle pain, low back pain and rib pain
• Safe strength and cardiovascular exercise, adjusted trimester by trimester
• Support belts, taping and practical changes to how you move
• Pelvic floor training in both directions: how to contract, and just as importantly how to release
• Birth preparation: perineal massage, positions for labour, breathing and pushing technique

After birth

The standard six-week check is not a musculoskeletal assessment. A postpartum physiotherapy appointment looks at your pelvic floor, your abdominal wall, your scar and your goals.

Abdominal separation is normal in late pregnancy and usually improves on its own. What matters more than the width of the gap is how well the tissue transfers load, which is what we assess and train. Return to running is criteria-based rather than calendar-based: usually not before around twelve weeks, and only once you can manage impact without symptoms. The same applies to lifting.

We also treat bladder leakage and urgency, bowel symptoms, the heaviness or dragging sensation that suggests prolapse, caesarean and perineal scar recovery, and pain with sex. These are common. They are not something to accept permanently because you've had a baby.

Pelvic pain, prolapse and the years beyond

Pelvic pain rarely has a single cause. Years of guarding against pain builds muscle tension that then generates pain of its own, and unwinding that takes hands-on work, graded exposure and an explanation of what's happening in your nervous system. Laura works alongside people managing endometriosis, vaginismus, bladder urgency, prolapse and menopause-related changes.

Prevention deserves a mention too. Much long-term pelvic floor injury is avoidable, or at least reducible, with preparation before birth and honest assessment afterwards rather than years later.

Laura believes in village-style care and collaborative practice: that a person recovering after birth does better when her physiotherapist, obstetrician, midwife, doula and psychologist are talking to one another rather than working in separate silos. At Origia they are down the same corridor, which makes that considerably easier.

Appointments are available Monday to Friday, with some Saturday times.