Women often neglect their health, especially when it “seems’’ to be a normal part of a woman’s experience. We wanted to shed light on how important it is to take matters into your own hands and seek out professional support! Meet Anna Schuur! She is a physiotherapist from Barcelona, specializing in women’s health, pelvic floor and postural re-education. She found her passion in helping women improve their pelvic health during different stages of their lives when two of her friends became pregnant, and had premature babies. She made it her mission to help them recover andsupport them during that time. Since taking a deep dive into women’s health, she has never looked back.
Anna herself is a mother of a gorgeous little girl, and heads the women’s health unit at DISC Kuwait. Even though she has been a women’s health specialist since before she had her baby, she found that through the experience of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, she was better able to understand women during consultations related to the childbirth process. She feels her journey into motherhood has helped her become more empathetic and flexible when programming treatments
“A women’s health physiotherapist is a specialist who helps women during the course of their lives, as they go through different natural processes, such as menstruation, pregnancy, postpartum and menopause,” Anna shares, she tells us about some of the examples of injuries women may face, such as low back pain or any other pain during pregnancy, separation of the abdominal muscles after giving birth (diastasis recti abdominis), leakage of urine when you cough, sneeze, jump (urinary Incontinence), pain in the pelvic floor rehabilitation region during certain activities or related to hormonal imbalances.
Women most commonly visit Anna during pregnancy and after giving birth in the postpartum stage. “During pregnancy, a woman’s body undergoes many transformations due to change in posture and the role of hormones. From a physiotherapy perspective we help women optimize their physical condition and reduce any type of pain, as well as to prepare her body for childbirth,” she explains.
The treatment that Anna offers is usually based on therapeutic exercise and manual therapy (which is close to a deep tissue massage), such as myofascial release techniques and/or mobilizations. The treatment depends on the initial assessment and has to be personalized, depending on what the woman needs at that time according to Anna. It makes sense that there is no one size fits all approach and that each treatment is tailored for the issues a woman is facing.
We asked Anna how many sessions it takes for women to notice a difference in the issue that she is visiting the physiotherapist for. “It depends on each patient and each condition will be different. During the assessment time, we will decide a treatment plan which usually could be 3 weeks in case of a short-term treatment or a long-term treatment which may last at least 3 months. For example, a patient with stress urinary incontinence that was related to a weak pelvic floor and abdominal muscles. With 10 sessions of personalized physiotherapy and unique treatment she improved to a point that she stopped having urine leakage when she was making efforts such as jumping, coughing or sneezing,” Anna tells us.
Anna advises us to pay more attention to our lifestyle, because our health depends on it. The quality of our sleep, the food we eat, the physical exercise we do are factors that determine our health. Regarding women’s health, it is important to keep these factors in mind and also to understand that pain (during menstruation, during penetration, etc.) and urine leakage or constipation, is NOT Normal.
It is always best to visit the physiotherapist to get custom treatment or advice for any issue you have, but in the meantime, Anna gives us three tips every woman should be following for good health: Avoid the “stopping peeing” technique. It can be dangerous for your pelvic health. Healthy habits such as getting 8 hours of sleep, eating unprocessed food and regular exercising are the key to being healthy. Practice mindfulness breathing exercise every day.
Anna practices the advice she gives, and she loves getting outdoors to connect with nature. All of her hobbies are related to outdoor activities such as cycling and hiking. She is trying to instil the same love of the outdoors in her daughter, and whenever the weather is nice, she plans outdoor activities. She also maintains an active lifestyle by regularly working out , cycling and swimming during the summer season.
To learn more about women’s health physiotherapist and to get some amazing tips and advice, follow Anna Schuur on Instagram @annaschuur_physio.
