Pelvic Floor Therapy

What Is Pelvic Floor Therapy and Can It Help Me?

Many women experience pelvic health issues – including painful sex, bladder leaks, or debilitating cramps – yet they feel uncertain about where to turn for help. You may have heard about pelvic floor therapy but wonder what it actually involves and whether it could help your specific symptoms. At Santa Fe OBGYN, we offer specialized pelvic floor therapy with Jacqueline Maestas, DPT, a licensed physical therapist who is certified in pelvic floor therapy. Jacqueline works in conjunction with and under the supervision of board-certified OBGYN Dr. Lynore Martinez, MD. This collaborative approach ensures you receive comprehensive care that addresses both the medical and musculoskeletal aspects of pelvic health.

Pelvic floor therapy is a specialized form of physical therapy focused on the muscles, ligaments, connective tissues, and nerves of the pelvic region. These structures support your bladder, uterus, and rectum, and play critical roles in urinary and bowel control, sexual function, and core stability. When pelvic floor dysfunction occurs, it can create a wide range of symptoms that significantly impact quality of life. The encouraging news is that pelvic floor therapy offers effective, non-surgical treatment for many common pelvic health conditions.

If you have been suffering in silence with pelvic pain, incontinence, or sexual dysfunction, believing these issues are normal or untreatable, it is time to reconsider. Pelvic floor therapy at Santa Fe OBGYN has helped countless women find relief from symptoms they thought they would have to endure forever. Understanding what this therapy involves and how it can help is the first step toward reclaiming your pelvic health and overall wellbeing.

Understanding the Pelvic Floor & Pelvic Floor Therapy

The pelvic floor is a complex group of muscles, ligaments, and connective tissues that stretch like a hammock from the pubic bone in front to the tailbone in back. These muscles perform numerous essential functions including supporting pelvic organs, maintaining continence of bladder and bowel, enabling sexual function, and stabilizing the core and lower back. When the pelvic floor functions properly, most women are completely unaware of these muscles. However, when dysfunction develops, the symptoms can be life-altering.

Pelvic floor dysfunction occurs when these muscles become too tight, too weak, uncoordinated, or a combination of these issues. Muscles that are too tight or in spasm cannot relax properly, leading to pain during intercourse, difficulty emptying the bladder or bowels, and chronic pelvic pain. Weak or overstretched muscles cannot adequately support pelvic organs or maintain continence, resulting in bladder or bowel leakage and pelvic organ prolapse. Sometimes muscles have normal strength but poor coordination, meaning they do not contract and relax at the appropriate times.

Pelvic floor therapy addresses these dysfunctions through specialized assessment and treatment techniques. Jacqueline Maestas, DPT has completed extensive training beyond general physical therapy to become certified in pelvic floor therapy. This advanced certification demonstrates expertise in pelvic anatomy, the unique assessment methods required for this sensitive area, and evidence-based treatment approaches for pelvic floor disorders. Working under the supervision of Dr. Lynore Martinez, MD at Santa Fe OBGYN ensures that any underlying medical conditions contributing to symptoms are properly diagnosed and managed alongside physical therapy treatment.

How Pelvic Floor Therapy Is Performed

Your first pelvic floor therapy appointment at Santa Fe OBGYN begins with a comprehensive evaluation. Jacqueline Maestas, DPT will discuss your medical history, symptoms, how long you have experienced them, and how they impact your daily life. This conversation helps identify potential causes of dysfunction and establishes your treatment goals. You will be encouraged to ask questions and share concerns in a private, comfortable environment where nothing is too embarrassing to discuss.

The physical assessment includes evaluating your posture, movement patterns, and areas outside the pelvis that may contribute to pelvic floor dysfunction, such as the hips, lower back, and abdomen. Many women are surprised to learn that tension or weakness in these areas directly affects pelvic floor function. An internal pelvic floor muscle assessment may be performed if you are comfortable with this. During an internal exam, Jacqueline Maestas, DPT uses a single gloved finger to assess muscle tone, strength, endurance, coordination, tender points, and the ability to properly contract and relax the pelvic floor muscles. You remain in control throughout the assessment and can request to stop at any time.

Treatment sessions are individualized based on your specific dysfunction and symptoms. For women with tight or hypertonic pelvic floor muscles, treatment focuses on releasing tension through manual therapy techniques. This may include internal and external myofascial release, trigger point therapy, and gentle stretching. Manual therapy helps deactivate painful trigger points, release fascial restrictions, and restore normal muscle length and flexibility. As muscles relax, many women experience immediate reduction in pain and improvement in function.

For women with weak pelvic floor muscles, treatment emphasizes strengthening through proper exercise technique. Many women have been performing Kegel exercises incorrectly for years, which explains why their symptoms have not improved. Jacqueline Maestas, DPT teaches correct technique for pelvic floor muscle contractions, ensuring you engage the right muscles with appropriate intensity, duration, and coordination. Biofeedback tools may be used to provide visual or auditory confirmation that you are performing exercises correctly, which dramatically accelerates learning and progress.

Treatment also includes neuromuscular re-education, teaching your muscles to work together properly during activities like walking, lifting, coughing, or exercising. During pelvic floor therapy at Santa Fe OBGYN, you will also learn breathing techniques that support pelvic floor function, as proper diaphragmatic breathing is essential for optimal pelvic floor coordination. Behavioral strategies may be incorporated to retrain bladder or bowel habits if continence issues are present. Education about posture, body mechanics, and lifestyle modifications helps you maintain progress between sessions and prevent recurrence of symptoms.

Conditions Pelvic Floor Therapy Treats

Pelvic floor therapy effectively treats a wide range of conditions affecting women’s pelvic health. According to the American Physical Therapy Association, pelvic floor physical therapy is considered first-line treatment for many pelvic floor disorders. One of the most common conditions treated is urinary incontinence, including stress incontinence where leakage occurs with coughing, sneezing, or exercise, and urge incontinence characterized by sudden, strong urges to urinate. Research published in the Journal of Urology demonstrates that pelvic floor therapy can reduce incontinence episodes by more than fifty percent in many women.

In clinical studies, it has been proven that many pelvic pain conditions respond extremely well to pelvic floor therapy. This includes pain during sexual intercourse, known as dyspareunia, which affects approximately three out of four women at some point in their lives according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Chronic pelvic pain, vulvodynia, vaginismus, painful bladder syndrome, and pain from endometriosis or fibroids can all benefit from addressing pelvic floor muscle dysfunction. While pelvic floor therapy may not cure the underlying condition, it can significantly reduce pain symptoms and improve quality of life.

Menstrual disorders including severe cramping, also called dysmenorrhea, often improve with pelvic floor therapy. The National Institutes of Health reports that dysmenorrhea affects between fifty and ninety percent of women, with ten to fifteen percent experiencing pain severe enough to interfere with daily activities. By releasing pelvic floor muscle tension, improving blood flow, and addressing referred pain patterns, pelvic floor therapy can substantially reduce menstrual pain intensity.

Pregnancy and postpartum issues are prime candidates for pelvic floor therapy. During pregnancy, therapy can address pelvic girdle pain, prepare the pelvic floor for delivery, and teach proper pushing techniques. After childbirth, pelvic floor therapy helps women recover from the stretching and potential tearing that occurs during vaginal delivery. Treatment addresses diastasis recti, cesarean section scar tissue, and helps women safely return to exercise. The earlier postpartum pelvic floor therapy begins, the better the outcomes for long-term pelvic health.

Other conditions treated include pelvic organ prolapse, where pelvic organs drop from their normal position, constipation and difficulty with bowel movements, tailbone pain, hip pain that stems from pelvic floor dysfunction, and sexual dysfunction including difficulty achieving orgasm or decreased sensation. Jacqueline Maestas, DPT works closely with Dr. Lynore Martinez, MD at Santa Fe OBGYN to ensure that all aspects of these conditions are appropriately addressed through coordinated medical and therapeutic care.

Who Can Benefit from Pelvic Floor Therapy

Women of all ages can benefit from pelvic floor therapy at Santa Fe OBGYN. Young women and athletes who experience bladder leakage during high-impact activities often assume this is normal, but it indicates pelvic floor dysfunction that deserves treatment. Pregnant women can benefit from pelvic floor therapy to prevent or minimize complications during pregnancy and delivery. New mothers, whether they delivered vaginally or by cesarean section, benefit from postpartum pelvic floor assessment and treatment to optimize recovery and prevent long-term issues.

Women in perimenopause and menopause frequently develop pelvic floor symptoms as hormonal changes affect tissue health and muscle function. Pelvic floor therapy helps manage the incontinence, prolapse, and sexual dysfunction that can accompany this life stage. Women who have undergone pelvic surgery, including hysterectomy, bladder suspension procedures, or prolapse repair, benefit from pelvic floor therapy to optimize surgical outcomes and prevent complications.

You do not need to wait until symptoms become severe to seek help at Santa Fe OBGYN. In fact, early intervention produces the best outcomes. If you experience any urinary leakage, even if you consider it minor, pelvic floor therapy can prevent progression to more severe incontinence. If sex is uncomfortable or painful, you deserve treatment rather than avoiding intimacy. If your pelvic pain or menstrual cramps are severe enough to disrupt your life, effective help is available. Women should not suffer in silence with any of these issues.

What to Expect from Pelvic Floor Therapy

Most women attend pelvic floor therapy sessions once or twice weekly initially at Santa Fe OBGYN, with frequency decreasing as symptoms improve. Each session typically lasts forty-five to sixty minutes and includes hands-on treatment, exercise instruction, and education. The length of your overall treatment course depends on the severity and complexity of your condition. Some women with acute issues see significant improvement within four to six sessions, while those with chronic, complex conditions may benefit from several months of treatment.

Progress is not always linear, and you may experience fluctuations in symptoms as your body adapts to treatment. This is normal and does not indicate that therapy is not working. At Santa Fe OBGYN Jacqueline Maestas, DPT tracks your progress using objective measures and symptom questionnaires, helping you recognize improvements that might otherwise go unnoticed. Home exercise programs are an essential component of treatment, and your commitment to performing prescribed exercises between sessions significantly impacts your outcomes.

Many women notice some improvement within the first few sessions of pelvic floor therapy at Santa Fe OBGYN, as muscle tension releases or coordination improves. However, lasting change requires consistent treatment and practice. The goal is not just symptom relief but also addressing the underlying dysfunction and movement patterns that created the problem, which helps prevent recurrence after treatment ends.

Insurance Coverage for Pelvic Floor Therapy

One common concern about pelvic floor therapy is cost, but many insurance plans provide coverage for this medically necessary treatment. Pelvic floor therapy is typically covered under your physical therapy benefits, though specific coverage varies by insurance plan. At Santa Fe OBGYN, our staff will work with your insurance company to verify your benefits and determine your coverage for pelvic floor therapy. We handle the paperwork and authorization process to make accessing care as simple as possible.

Most insurance plans cover a certain number of physical therapy visits per year, and pelvic floor therapy counts toward this allowance. Some plans require a referral from a physician, while others allow direct access to physical therapy. Because Jacqueline Maestas, DPT works under the supervision of Dr. Lynore Martinez, MD within Santa Fe OBGYN, obtaining necessary insurance referrals and coordinating care between providers is seamless. Our team is experienced in navigating insurance requirements and will advocate for the coverage you need.

Even if you have a deductible or copay, the investment in pelvic floor therapy often proves worthwhile when compared to the costs of managing symptoms long-term through medications, pads, or eventual surgery. More importantly, the improvement in quality of life that comes from resolving pelvic floor dysfunction is invaluable. Do not let concerns about cost prevent you from exploring whether pelvic floor therapy can help you.

Why Choose Pelvic Floor Therapy at Santa Fe OBGYN

Receiving pelvic floor therapy at Santa Fe OBGYN offers significant advantages. Jacqueline Maestas, DPT works in conjunction with and under the supervision of board certified OBGYN Dr. Lynore Martinez, MD. This ensures a coordinated approach to care that addresses all aspects of your pelvic health. If underlying medical conditions such as hormonal imbalances, infections, endometriosis, or structural abnormalities contribute to your symptoms, these can be diagnosed and treated concurrentlyby Dr. Martinez with pelvic floor therapy. This integrated approach produces better outcomes than treating musculoskeletal dysfunction in isolation.

The team at Santa Fe OBGYN understands that discussing pelvic health concerns requires trust and comfort. Jacqueline Maestas, DPT creates a professional, compassionate environment where women feel safe discussing intimate symptoms without judgment or embarrassment. Her expertise as a licensed physical therapist who is certified in pelvic floor therapy, combined with the medical oversight provided by Dr. Lynore Martinez, MD, ensures you receive the highest standard of evidence-based care.

Every treatment plan at Santa Fe OBGYN is customized to your unique symptoms, goals, and circumstances. You are not just a diagnosis but an individual with specific needs and concerns. This personalized approach, combined with the convenience of receiving both medical and therapeutic care in one location, makes Santa Fe OBGYN an excellent choice for women seeking pelvic floor therapy.

Pelvic Floor Therapy | Santa Fe

You do not have to continue suffering with pelvic pain, incontinence, painful sex, or debilitating menstrual cramps. Pelvic floor therapy at Santa Fe OBGYN offers real solutions for these common but often unspoken conditions. Jacqueline Maestas, DPT, working under the supervision of board certified OBGYN Dr. Lynore Martinez, MD, provides expert, compassionate care that can transform your pelvic health and overall quality of life. And our staff will work with your insurance company to verify coverage and make accessing care as easy as possible.

Take the first step toward relief and schedule a pelvic floor therapy consultation at Santa Fe OBGYN today. You deserve to live without the limitations and pain of pelvic floor dysfunction, and we are here to help you achieve that goal.

Santa Fe Pelvic Floor Therapy: 505-988-4922