“We’re very descriptive… I’m always informing my patients of what I’m going to do, letting them know, ‘This is what’s going to happen, this is where I’m placing my hand,’” says Collins.

Alonso adds, “We don’t push anyone to go beyond where they’re comfortable going. We have all our models, we describe everything, we try to inform people as much as possible…I’ve rehabbed postpartum moms without doing any internal work because some people felt uncomfortable with it, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of different ways we can start to access the pelvic floor or work the structures around the pelvic floor.”

“And another thing that’s specific to the internal work is that there’s never going to be something we do to a patient that we haven't had done on ourselves. We’ve felt everything that we do,” says Schoonover.

You may have heard about pelvic PT recently, especially how it’s standard postpartum care in France (yet another way that country supports mothers better than America). French OBGYNs prescribe postpartum women 10-20 sessions of pelvic physical rehab, and it’s covered as part of the country’s government health care plan.

In America, pelvic physical therapy is still relatively new and it's typically an out of network service. Many moms and OBGYNs either don’t know this help exists or the extent to which it can help.

Alonso, who has been working in this field for over decade, says she used to get European patients who had to fight with their U.S. doctors to get a prescription to see her. It’s not as difficult to get a prescription or recommendation anymore, but patients still need to ask.