Health experts are trying to spread awareness about pelvic pain in women

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Pelvic pain amongst women who exercise is common, but not normal. That’s the advice from leading pelvic health experts who want to spread the message that pain doesn’t just affect pregnant or postpartum women.

Transcript

00:00A trampolinist Imogen Florian wants more athletes to feel comfortable talking about their pelvic

00:08health.

00:09Without that I guess you'll see a drop off in participation within sport and we had seen

00:13that in previous years.

00:15While Florian hasn't experienced issues herself, 80% of girls and women in high impact sports

00:21like gymnastics have and it's become a priority for many organisations to address.

00:29Pelvic health education has been non-existent in our current traditional education courses.

00:34We've been doing a whole lot of education with women's pelvic floor health physiotherapists

00:39where we've educated not only parents, athletes but also coaches.

00:44Around 1 in 3 women across all sports experience pelvic floor symptoms like urinary incontinence

00:51and a study of 4,500 symptomatic Australian women found half of those stopped physical

00:57activity because of it.

00:59So if we think about how important it is for women to be active and exercising for their

01:04health and also all the work that we're putting into trying to engage women and girls in sport

01:09we can see that this is a really big previously unrecognised barrier.

01:13Symptoms can affect anyone but talking about it is often the hardest part.

01:19We really want to make sure that we're picking that up early and we're de-stigmatising the

01:23whole thing so that the girls feel comfortable talking to us because there are a range of

01:27things we can do.

01:28Whilst these conditions are very common they're not normal, they're not something we just

01:32have to accept or tolerate and there are treatments that are available.

01:36Experts recommend seeing a pelvic floor physiotherapist for the best treatment advice.

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