Sex After Childbirth: Techniques & Strategies From a Perinatal Therapist

Happier Couples

Sex After Childbirth: Techniques & Strategies From a Perinatal Therapist

41:44

 

What are the causes of pain postpartum? How can you soothe your own pain and what exercises and massage techniques can help? What does self massage entail — both directly and indirectly? And how do you assess readiness for sex postpartum? How does a Caesarian birth affect sexual functioning?

Perinatal Therapist, Janette Yee, joins us to answer these questions and more.

Janette's Caesarean Birth Selfcare course is now available for sign up at any time. Previously the four lessons were taught live; now they're available pre-recorded, along with over 20 how-to videos illustrating self-massage techniques and exercises. Cost: $199

Introductory bonus: access to 6 months of weekly live online group classes with Janette every Wednesday at 1pm EST. She teaches a mini-lesson, runs a mini-workout, and answers questions. All recorded and available to all students within 24 hours. (Value: $2600)

Follow Janette on Instagram & LinkedIn.

Please see here for a rough version of this transcript.

This podcast is sponsored by Adam & Eve. Use code DRJESS to save 50% off 1 item + bonus goodies!

If you’ve got questions or topic suggestions for the podcast, submit them here. As well, you can now record your messages for us! Please record your message/question in a quiet room and use your phone’s headphones with a built-in mic if possible.

And be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music & Stitcher!

Rough Transcript:

This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health or other professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.

Sex After Childbirth: Techniques & Strategies From a Perinatal Therapist

00:00:05 - 00:05:15

You're listening to the sex with dr. Jess podcast sex and relationship advice you can you off tonight? Hey, hey, this is Brandon. We're ready to talk sex and relationships with dr. Yes. How's it going? I like that voice now. I just want to shut it off just you and me. Let's just go. Let's get out of here sexy time. Yeah, not if you call it sexy time game. Well, the mood is over. So back to the show. We actually have a new retail partner for our podcast and they are offering a bunch of free stuff to our listeners as well as some deep discounts. So most folks have probably heard of Adam and Eve and they sell everything from lingerie Vibes two rings to toys to King Kong. Have and with code. Dr. Jess Jess, you get 50% off one item plus a bunch of free gifts. So they're giving you six free movies free shipping and three extra treats you can use to spice things up in bed. So please do go check out your options and use code d r j e s s office to save 50% off your one item and get your bonus goodies at Adam and Eve, It can be sexy time right now for everybody. This is why I'm still here. Well, at least I'm having a good time. You know, sometimes we in life we run behind and twenty Twenty-One has been a year for me off of just falling behind. So today we're actually going to Aaron interview that we recorded a few months ago, and we had intended to release it earlier, but you know, Bob If circumstances got in the way and we didn't get to and this was such an interesting interview for me because it's all new stuff related to postpartum Wellness bought a pleasure and overall health that relates to all of us not just people who are postpartum and our guest Jeanette. She is passionate perinatal therapist a mother of two months or more competitive Runner and rugby player and she's working really hard to improve perinatal health care and this really includes quality of life issues around sexual relationships in April is actually cesarean birth awareness month. So our delay makes for good timing. So without further Ado, let's cut to our interview with Jeanette e just get so excited to be together again, even though I'm in Colts run to and you're in Sunny Jamaica. I know I know that can we start with your title? What is a peck? Therapist what does that entail? So a perinatal therapist is something that I'm trying to increase awareness of perinatal is a term that describes the time period that oversees the pregnancy part in a person's journey through childbirth all the way to postpartum and you know, people often say well postpartum like how long is that? Cuz after I have a baby I'm always postpartum. So I guess more specifically it's you know, definitely the year after having a baby. So that's what the perinatal. Is and that's a time period that I work mostly with athletes. And is it different for athletes is the postnatal care different when you're you know, a professional athlete or somebody who's really involved in sport. I I think about the psychological toll for people who are so used to using their bodies and being so physical the toll that these big shifts in the body might take For sure, I mean the whole sports psychology of pregnancy and childbirth, I think affects everybody anybody who's ever gone through that Journey the what I'm referring to is that big identity shift from you know, however, you used to identify yourself as whether you're a full-time worker or you're someone who loves gardening et cetera pregnancy and postpartum can shift that identity to becoming a full-time parent now, I think for an athlete there is yet another level of like a shift because a big part of an athletic athletes identity is literally their relationship with their bodies and what it can do. So yes in that sense the sports psychology of healing for an athlete is is a little different. It's it's another level of well, then I need to reclaim my body and its abilities to perform because that is who I am. Yeah, that really resonates with me now in terms of post-childbirth and pain what are the causes of paying post-childbirth? And I mean, how do they affect our our sexual identity so I speak specifically about Caesarean birth or vaginal birth as well.

00:05:17 - 00:10:06

I think I think both I know you do specific work with cesareans. But I imagine you also work with people who have given vaginal birth. Absolutely. So, okay. So the big thing is the whole Corps canister. So you're talking about paying just but really it's pain is part of a bigger sort of umbrella, which is just function or the body's movements not being ideal. So, you know, I always say it takes nine months for your body to slowly change and become pregnant, but literally like 24 hours for it to suddenly not be pregnant anymore. So that causes dysfunction in the body, but the bodies like oh my God, how do I even move right home? So because through childbirth whether vaginal or whether through cesarean birth the body's trying to figure out how to you know, get from A to B. Your baby's crying you're going to get them. Right, you want to get up for a walk? So even those basic movements can cause pain and dysfunction and pain can be anywhere in the body. Typically though. Just what I find is pain in the lower back region pelvic floor the hip whether it's in the front of the hip the size of the hip and certainly a lot of abdominal week month. That that seems to make sense. Now with cesareans. I know you talk about self massage and exercise as really important parts of recovery that can reduce painful sex, but that was not really talked about it. So what is self massage? What does that look like post cesarean? And how does that help you kind of get your mojo back? Whether it's reducing pain or being more in the mood for sex or enjoying sex from me? Okay. So let's let's do a couple of definitions first here. Just you can certainly in my practice. I treat women in the way that works for them. But also I have a different style than the next therapist over. So I just wanted to bring that caveat out. There's so many ways to treat the same injury. So the way I treat a cesarean birth in terms of how that may affect painful sex is like you said through self massage and self massage for me. If I could Define it first for your listeners is it's kind of two different things, right so you can just self-massage either directly or indirectly and that smell kind of relation of tissues. So if we're talking about let's say the abdominal tissue after let's call it what it is Major abdominal surgery after a cesarean birth a direct effect. It could be something that you and I would be familiar with right you go for a massage with a massage therapist and there is, you know, their hands on the tissue and they're they're you know, they're working it. So that's an exam. Direct technique, but for indirect manipulation of tissue. I'm talking about movement. I'm talking about breathing on talking about exercise and talking about stretching. So that's that's what self massages and sex. I also wanted to find as well. So just when you talk about painful sex and after childbirth, you know, I think a lot of us might say, oh well sex must be vaginal penetration with a male partner me as a female and of course, it's just so many more permutations than that. So when I refer to sex, I mean Solo or partner to sex, I'm referring to stimulation of any part of the genitalia of the pelvic floor and of course talking pelvic floor because this is perinatal therapy. Obviously. The rest of your body is a sexual erogenous Zone, but I'm talking about the floor and then sex for me is also penetrative or dead. Penetrative so with those definitions in mind let me answer your question. So you mentioned sorry. Just tell me your question again specifically. I'm curious what the massage looks like. So what does self massage look like post cesarean and how does it well, you mentioned both self massage and exercise but let's start with the self massage. How does self May reduce pain in the abdominal region and pain in all the different types of sex you're talking about? Okay, so all right. So first of all in a cesarean birth, how does that affect painful sex so cesarean birth interrupt something in your abdominal region called fascia, and that's therapy speak for connective tissue and connective tissue in your abdominal region actually connects with the rest of your body.

00:10:06 - 00:15:15

So it's not just your abdominal set have an incision it can pull above so the tissue around your chest, for example, your abdominals are directly connected to your chest via faccia, but they can pull below which is your pelvic floor. So often times people don't appreciate. Is that oh my God, there is actual tissue that is cut in my abdominals and the front part of my body that pulls on the pelvic floor between my legs the tissue between my legs. So when I talk about massage, I'm talking about massage in the abdominal region, but that can greatly impact the tissues in the region between your legs right the entire pelvic floor region those tissues include faccia as I describe, but also muscles and you know, when I talk about self massage and my Caesarean birth classes that I teach we talked about all of these tissues these muscles that do different things specifically for sexual pleasure of right. So an incision in your abdominals can impact the muscles that get engorged with blood during excitation, right and when you're excited the incision and your name Domino's can squish or restrict the one Anatomy gland in your pelvic floor that actually lubricates the vagina, right? The incision can pull on the entire clitoral structure and just you know, listening to you speak. I can now really appreciate even more how big that clitoral structure can be. So all of these structures in the pelvic floor, they're solely designed for sexual pleasure and it's so it's not just oh am I peeing myself am I you know, how long do I have a prolapsed at all these other public floor conditions that can definitely be an issue. I think as a perinatal therapist sexual health is absolutely something that we should want to Focused Target the rehabilitation with after cesarean birth. So the self massage that I talked about. Okay, because we're we're talking right now. We're on a podcast unable to show you with my hands. There's actually two steps to specific steps of self massage that I I teach all my athletes. So are we cool talking about the psychological redness Readiness part and also the massage techniques, is that is that cool? Absolutely. Yeah your full approach is what we're looking for. Yes. So if we're talking about psychological Readiness, that's the sports psychology coming again, and I don't care if you're a recreational athlete a competitive athlete and Elite athlete. Everybody has gone through some kind of injury and that's what I'm talking about. When I say it's sports psychology of healing. So if you're injured there's a whole slew of emotions that come with that so childbirth, let's call it what it is. It's an injury whether it's vaginal or whether it's cesarean birth. So you need to be in a headspace where you accept recovery or you want to take that next step into healing specific was cesarean birth. There's a few techniques that I teach em. So the first thing I talked about is literally the words that we used to describe our experience of cesarean. Birth. Cesarean. Birth is a sneak kind of childbirth. I think versus vaginal birth is because a lot of times cesarean birth isn't planned for a right, so it's not part of a Somebody's birth plan, whatever it maybe it's not even something that might cross somebody's mind. So that's what I mean by not somebody's birth plan so they might not be ready for it. And there's a whole slew of emotions that come with that off and then pieced there. There's there seems to be a shame connected to Caesarean birth in general whether it's shame from within right in that case, but my subconscious just wage or can be shamed from from externally whether it's you know, someone saying the term, oh you had you didn't have a natural birth for example right off where you had a C-section. How do you feel about that? Like, oh my God, that's too bad or I'm really sorry. Right. So I always talk about those words are so important about the words that you think about your Caesarean birth are very important and the words that other people use around you. Referring to your own birth experience is very important. So the first exercise I give people is literally that observe the words that you're using when you're talking about your 16 berth when you're thinking about it and when you're actually using words and talking about it with somebody else.

00:15:15 - 00:20:07

What are those words and then you're going to write there's going to be two columns on the sheet of paper. It's really cool cuz you're going to write down that First Column You observe the words that I actually used so it maybe this is Erin but you might say, oh my gosh, it was so traumatic I could even think about it or I don't want to go there or I'm not ready yet or you know, there's a lot of that for example, the the fear there could be anger attached to it. Right? This is not what I want. I did plan for this. I wanted a natural birth. There can be shame as I described and also guilt like, oh, you know, I've I've heard of all these dead You know things that my baby isn't going to be getting in terms of health because I did birth there through my vagina and now they don't have an ideal microbiome. You know, I didn't pass along all those bacterias on a channel Canal that I know are healthy for my baby. Oh, I feel like a failure right? So there's shame and all of those emotions can be connected to how you think about your Caesarean birth. So if you're right down those observations observe write down what you're thinking the second column is going to be now off those thoughts actually true and are those thoughts positive or negative? Here's something that's really interesting about healing from an injury dress. The research shows that if you have any negative emotions around your injury, so like I mentioned fear guilt anger shame that actually heightens your pain. So if it heightens your pain, how are you going to get self massage done or even massage by a by a therapist? That's really interesting. Yeah. I'm really glad you're bringing home of the peace around shame because often we think well why why is my labia hurting if why is it hurt to touch? My labia? Why does it hurt to penetrate my vagina? Why does it hurt to touch down there when the incision thoughts exactly there, but not only you talking about how these things are interconnected physically but also emotionally and you know, there's so many layers to this. I really appreciate that you're bringing up the fact that it wasn't necessarily planned. Now, I know for some people cesareans are planned and they face judgment and shame around that but when we have expectations and those expectations aren't met that's when we experienced dispatch. And right in the it's not just psychology in terms of the way. We think and feel it's it's what's happening neurochemical in in the brain. Right? What chemicals are released in response to expectation is not being met and that that itself can be painful. Right? We have all this data showing that emotional pain is felt in a similar manner to physical pain and so all of these things seem to align so when I when you talk about massage, and I know you're going to get to the physical piece my brain immediately went to the physical piece. My brain was saying, okay, how do I touch with my thumb? Where do I put my index finger? How much pressure do I apply? Is it circular or oval are off or linear emotions, but you're seeing before we can even get to that we have to address all these other pieces and I don't think most of us make space for that. Especially, you know, when you have a young child and your schedule is directed in your sleep is disrupted and your relationship is disrupted and your identity has been disrupted. I appreciate this exercise of The Columns of you know, what am I thinking? What am I feeling and then, you know dead. Do I want to reshape some of these? It sounds a little bit like cognitive behavioral therapy to me but Focus specifically on on thoughts and feelings. So yeah, I love this as the first step of massage excited to hear the second which I mean, I'm I'm only imagining what it is fails for sure. So let's let's Dive Right into that the massage piece. So so let's talk about that. There's self-massage. They mentioned there's direct techniques but also indirect techniques which is more exercise related. Okay. So let's talk about the the the self massage manipulation techniques first. So when when we self massage, there's two things for kind of addressing one is the incision itself. And you know, I should probably back this up and say you know what, this is Arian birth just there's actually three months incisions. There's not just one but we usually we're we're addressing the external incision because that's the one we see and that's usually horizontal incision just above the pubic bone, but it's off. Really? Like if you think about it when we're when a baby is about to be birthed via see birth. There's that external incision that goes to the skin and the fat but there's a domino layer is is exposed and there is a vertical incision that's made down bad right down the middle of your six-pack.

00:20:07 - 00:25:02

And so that took open almost like a curtain and then we expose the uterus and then there is usually a horizontal incision made on that uterus, which is a very powerful muscle and that institution goes right through the entire uterine wall that sewed up the external incision of soda, but did you know that vertical incision on your abdominals? That's not showing up that's just left to heal on its own. So when we talk about self massage when I talk about self massage to an athlete anyway, so where they're doing self-massage. We're usually referring to the external insist that we see we are indirectly affecting the secondary incision, which is the one right along the Linea Alba. So the the vertical line that separates a six-pack from left to right, but but we're not really dealing with the uterine incision, right all that adhesions and flashes usually dealt with with direct techniques by a therapist so self massage for the external incision. There's two parts. You've got Scar Tissue which holds together the incision, but then you've got all these other things called adhesions which is sticky parts that exists throughout the entire the entire connective tissue of that faccia, and that's what links everything down to the pelvic floor and may cause painful sex Okay, so we've got techniques that address these two things scar tissue and fax. So once that psychological Readiness piece is addressed and that's what I teach all through the entire lesson 1 of of my course when I'm talking to my athletes, but once that's moved past that could be week one. It could be month when it could be here 1 then we start talking about manipulating the tissues first technique that I talked about is a technique that's not directly on the incision itself. It's around the incision. Would you like me to describe a few of those techniques? Yes, please certainly some anything that people can try at home or share with a friend I think is really useful. Okay, so even just I want you to try some your own abdominals and for myself, I've had to vaginal birth and it's just always so interesting to feel how the tissues of the abdominal feels like at how links to the pelvic floor. So if listening the ideal way to do this is lying flat on your back with your knees bent and the second best position is sitting with your back fully supported. So kind of like a slouchy position with your abs are just totally relaxed. I'm second-best as you so so am I so I'm doing this with everybody right now. I'm sitting kind of slouchy. So if you can expose your home, nose, and if you have an incision from a c birth, this is great. I want you to put your fingers just above that incision, maybe an inch above and then I want you to just walk away. No lotions people often ask him a using lotions or not. It depends on the technique. That's my answer. So for this particular Technique No lotions, you're putting your finger pads just above decision about an inch and above and you're dragging that tissue in small circles. Maybe the size of a loony. Oh wait, I'm Canadians. Not everybody knows for a fact just I guess bigger one and half times the size of a quarter. What's the what else is the size of a looney baby? It's a silver dollar a silver dollar. I don't know why I had to have an accent that soldered order that so the idea here is that we're not dragging the tissues to the end of its. Like tissue drag ability, right? So you're not taking it to its end range. You're still within the range of the vet tissue mobility and what you might feel very interesting Lee. Is that off. Okay. So observing remember they were going back to step one. Which is that psychology of just observing. How does it feel right? Do you feel it pulling just underneath your finger tips, or is it pulling elsewhere? Maybe it's pulling down to your incision. Maybe it's pulling up to your chest. Right and You observe when you do this a couple of circles both directions, by the way, so clockwise and counterclockwise because what you're trying to do just as you're looking for restrictions, you're looking for places that don't move in A Perfect Circle looking for places that might pull a little more than others.

00:25:02 - 00:30:11

Remember the left side of your incision is not the same as the middle. It's not the same as Is your right side and the part of your abdominals above your incision? It's not going to be the same as on the sides as your incision or below. So if you go down below here's where it gets interesting. So again, whether or not you've had a cesarean birth. I want everyone to try this put your fingers. So your finger pads again, you can use maybe I'm using three fingers by the way, not just one if you use more fingers, you get more drag you can really feel a little bit more. Draw circles just above your you know, between your pubic bone and your belly button. Just what do you feel? What do I feel like I don't know. Do you feel pulling of this tissue? Maybe even pulling onto your side? So I can how can I say it I can kind of dragged in words more than our words if that makes sense and downwards pulls a little bit more than up wage in the circles and not interesting. I love how you just observe that so you're talking about the quality of movement not necessarily where you feel the Restriction, so that's perfect cuz I wasn't actually even looking for that. I've the feedback I was looking for was where do you feel it? Like where is it pulling? So so some of you who are doing this right now, I want everything in the same spot. So just above so between your pubic bone and your belly button closer to your pubic bone. So now here's another technique so you're not on your installation yet for anybody with an incision. I want you to take a few fingers. I'm using four fingers now, and I'm just pulling That abdominal tissue upwards. So towards my nose. And now I'm pulling to the end of that tissue Mobility. So it's now now I've got no more tissue to Paul. Just where do you feel this now? I sort of actually feel it down in my pubic bone in just a little bit like we're like pubic Mound maybe not the bonus. Yes, and a lot of our listeners will probably feel the same again whether or not we've given birth whether it's a Fastenal birth. We've had or a c birth but some listeners will feel this right into their clitoris. If you pull well that kind of leads there, right? Yeah, I should just note for people who don't know. I'm sure most people know but I've never given birth but I have had issues with my pelvic floor. And so even for folks who haven't given birth. It seems that first of all the psychological peace is essential but that secondary the physical indirect massage that you're describing. It seems as though it might apply for many different conditions, whether you've had a different type of surgery on a different part of your body or in that region or even for pelvic floor Health more generally and becoming more familiar with the area. Absolutely absolutely and literally just we're taking all those pelvic Health pieces. I'm just applying it specifically to Caesarean birth. And because it's so important, right? If you've got decision that disrupts this movement of tissues that it's it's really going to be tight, but let's go back to the so I know there are technique so I'm more Advanced Techniques. Let's progresses the first technique Doing the circles doing the upward or downward or sideways pulling not to the end of tissue Mobility the second progression from this is actually pulling to the end of tissue Mobility. So soulless Paul, so just you're good. I'm good. Let's pull upwards. So you're still going to be in that same spot, but I'm using two hands. Now I'm using two hands just above my pubic bone and I'm pull it again. I mind my slowed she's sitting position. But if you're lying on your back with your knees bent, it's ideal. I'm pulling a little more aggressively now now box when you're pulling a little bit more aggressively and allow yourself to pull like on if we have a pain scale from zero to ten allow yourself to get to like a two or three out of ten. So really really like feel it off. Where do you feel it now? Actually feel this more in my lower back, even though I'm touching my front. Is that right? Okay, awesome. So am I some weird? I'm a freaking Pho maybe you feel it. Anyway, Brandon. I want you to try. I mean I thought for sure I've been trying I've been doing this the whole time and I felt it initially along the side doing the more aggressive pulling. I actually feel it where I'm applying the pressure. Okay. So which to me makes sense not really feeling anything anything lower than that, but that's where that's where I'm noticing. So nothing in your life. Nothing in my junk. I thought for sure you were going to be like a Feel It In My Bones All this talk about about pain and and you know, I have so much respect for anyone who's given birth cesarean or naturally vaginally vaginal birth.

00:30:12 - 00:35:15

I apologize check checking myself, but especially when somebody tickles my junk the wrong way and I'm like, oh my God, be careful, you know, so this is really interesting way to pull into feel and and to just pay attention and notice cuz I think I'm you know, most of us don't do that. We're just not aware of what we're feeling. Yes. That's so cool Brandon. Thank you as a home birth person for trying this. I think it's it's very interesting. So Jess, first of all, you're getting back pain pulling the front of your body so long I wouldn't say pain just more pressure if that makes sense. You feel pressure in the back now so all of these for anybody who's listening like this is not wrong. None of this is wrong. Where should I bring? Feeling it. Oh my gosh, you know I have paid. Oh my gosh. It's like it's really Yankee my clitoris. Oh, it's more my left my right nothing's wrong about that pain. I want everybody to note. This song pain is your body's way of communicating with you. That's your body's language. Your body is trying to tell you something. So now it's our turn to listen and be like God, huh? Isn't that interesting by the way, that's the that's the response. I want everyone to really try to practice. So for any cesarean birth parents are going through this going back psychological Readiness. Peace. If you are feeling negative emotions with talking about or thinking about your see birth replace those negative thoughts with huh. Well, isn't that interesting? So now that you're doing yourself massage, huh? Isn't that interesting? So for me? Initially when I pull up I feel it's directly into my labia a hundred percent all the way down like almost to my anus if I'm pulling hard enough. I feel that so the massage maybe I need to pull harder. Hang on everybody. I want to feel it in my bachelor. So from a perinatal therapy standpoint. Okay. So what does this actually mean? Okay. Okay, so I'm feeling it. I'm just feeling it under my hands says Brandon. I feel it more. You know, I feel like around my back says just and then I say hm. I feel it down into my labia does all this mean so first of all, it's all connected. So Brandon has so much tissue Mobility with a technique that he's employing that he just feels it locally or under his hands off. That's cool. That's fine. Just and I feel that facial pull or that connective tissue pull to the other parts of the body that are abdominals are attached to so what is that exactly mean? Well, maybe it's tight. Maybe it's adhesed is that technical word that we use right? It's bound down. It's stuck down. So, you know when we're pulling up on our abdominal should wage. Led into the labia for me. The answer is no I know because I'm pulling as hard as I am. And I know I also have certain types of pelvic floor dysfunction. So this becomes the treatment You see how that works. So we're doing the test together just and Brandon, but that also becomes a treatment so I don't want to feel when I'm pulling up on my abdominals. I don't want to feel restrained into my labia that's going to possibly cause pain or at least discomfort during sex. And again sex is all the definitions. I provided at the beginning of the show off. So what's the treatment? So anyone if you're feeling so for just oh, I feel it into my back. Now. Do you feel more when you're pulling your abdominal tissue to the right to the left off or down I sort of felt it all around. So let's choose one direction that gives you the most feedback or sensation into your back. So let's save that. Is that pulling up towards your nose? Yes, so that becomes just as treatment. That's actually also my treatment. That's I do I'm doing the exact same thing. I'm scooping my tissues up towards my nose and I'm feeling in my legs. So I actually have to hold this scoop or this Paul. And I always say nice deep breaths for a minute. And I'm giving you an actual time to work with but of course, you know, the more familiar you become with your body. You're going to hold it for however long it takes for that sensation or pull into your back to start to dissipate just right. So yeah, I'm so glad you're talking about this cuz you know, when we think of pain with penetration or pain externally along the vulva, we often think about like relaxing and breathing and fantasizing and getting turned on and doing other things and using glue, but I would never think to like go up to my belly button or my abdominal pain or my lower back.

00:35:15 - 00:40:06

And so this is just it's super interesting and and brand new to me. I know that I have limited time with you. So I do want to also ask about the incisions themselves. Do you ever touch the incisions? Because I think you said there's direct and indirect massage. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely touch the incision. So what I described to you these two techniques of the small circles. Then moving to large circles and then moving to a pole and hold those techniques are done directly on the incision the external incision, of course as well. Absolutely, but that is definitely not the first step because like I said, there has to be a certain amount of your body being cool with the touch and then cool with Therapeutic Touch, which is let's face it. It's aggressive wage, right? It's you're you're you're trying to move parts that have been stuck down and when someone isn't a therapist and they're they're paying their own body. They have to appreciate that. This is a this is a professional job, right? This is something that many people have trained to become a therapist for so give yourself, you know a little bit of just you know off a bit of Grace and say if if you don't really know how it's supposed to be feeling that's okay, you know, if you're not sure that's okay. That's where you go and you connect with a dog. Question and you want to double-check and of course, this is neither the time nor place to really talk about it. But when I coach my athletes through postpartum recovery, there's actually so Mondays steps of how to make sure what you're doing is safe and appropriate so we didn't go through that with your audience today. But certainly there are a lot of steps that you want to double-check go through every single time you use a technique and every single day your body's different every single day. Did your baby crying keep you up all night? That means my pain is heightened. Right? Did I try to have sex the night before and it came and now the teachers a little bit more traumatized and so now we have to back off of my techniques like there's so many checks and balances. So I actually give parameters on on safety checks each and every time an athlete does the same massage on or around their incision. And it must I imagine it begins with trusting your own body's response. Right? So if you know you tell them to do something and today and it's worked for them seven times and on the 8th day, it feels different. So be it right they can we do have to learn to trust your own judgement and I think part of the childbirth process whether it's vaginal or cesarean is going to putting so much trust into a system into a system that doesn't necessarily need support us that doesn't necessarily prioritize our psychological safety. And so we have to I think it's a process taking it back right any time you've undergone any sort of trauma or any kind of time. You've undergone any sort of medical procedure. I think it is a process to take it back in your body and and say, okay like I'm not feeling with right with this today. So I know better right same thing with whether you're with a massage therapist or a chiropractor or any health practitioner anyone who's you know, putting their hands on you for therapeutic reasons, you know your body best and I always find that the best therapists are the ones who really makes page. For you to speak up and I can tell I can tell that's what you do. I can see from the from the slow steps you take right? It's not just like hey move your thumbs this way you started with the psychological then you moved to indirect touch and then Thursday touch and I I know that you you offer virtual pregnancy and postpartum Rehabilitation sessions. So I do encourage people to check that out. And you also have an effect. Of course the Cesarean birth self care program that you run every couple of months and folks can find find more information at Janet, We'll link those in the show notes as well as follow along i g. Ask Janet Janet j a n e t t e and we'll put those in the show notes as well. And I think we have a discount code as usual the code is dr. Jess for a discount off of your course on on cesarean birth self-care. So really want to thank you Brandon. Did you how was touching yourself? You know every time we hug? Jeff's on I learned so much and there was a lot I took out of this and I really enjoyed going through the motions of massage. I think just was telling me to make notes so that I could apply some of these jobs know she had we haven't had a child and like rub my belly belly. I love having my belly touch like I love having my tummy touched. It's a it's a very soothing but it can also be erotic. I know that's a different conversation and I really appreciate your time and your Insight and connecting all of these pieces knowing that a pain in one area could be referred from another so encourage people to check off course and check out your Instagram.

00:40:06 - 00:41:41

Thanks so much for your time today so much just always a pleasure. Thank you to you for tuning in and I do want to give an update on Jeanette's courses. So her Caesarean birth self-care course is actually now available for sign up at any time along with twenty how to videos that illustrates self massage techniques and exercises and I know she's offering a bulb. With six months of weekly live online group classes. So every Wednesday afternoon, you get a mini-lesson a mini work out in a Q&A if you have questions for her so you can definitely learn more on our website and we'll put those in the show notes. So check those out and once again a reminder that our new partner Adam and eve.com. They are offering 50% off any single item with a code doctor j d r j e s s plus free shipping and a bunch of other free bonuses. So check that out too. I feel like I should maybe do that advertisement plug make any time off sexy time that wasn't a part of it. Yeah for sure but it was way better than my doctor Jess. Why don't you just say make any time sexy time with Brandon? Where do that make any time off sexy time with Brandon? We're still here this yet. I'm not feeling it. I like it. All right folks leaving you with Good Vibes today and every day off. You're listening to the sex with dr. Jess podcast improve your sex life improve your life off.