Bernadette is a midwife with a Master in Public Health (MPH), core and pelvic floor specialist, published author and previous pant wetter.
She has worked in midwifery across Australia from remote Aboriginal Communities to big city hospitals to publicly funded homebirth. She spent a year volunteering as a midwifery educator in the Solomon Islands and teaches midwifery emergency courses in rural and remote areas around Australia. She was awarded the Sidney Sax award for best overall performance in her MPH.
She is also the Founder and Creator of Core and Floor Restore – online education and exercise programs, workshops, and consultations. Her passion is to enable people to use their bodies and minds to their greatest ability in all aspects of life.
A big part of her work is centered around emotional and physical birth trauma and postpartum recovery. She offers free online antenatal classes and co-host's "The Great Birth Rebellion" an evidence-informed podcast. Bernadette’s life mission to bring the rate of birth trauma down to zero whilst simultaneously improving postpartum care.
She has epically birthed two babes at home and recovered from incontinence and prolapse. When she isn’t working or studying you can find her out bush, camping and hiking or splashing in the bath at home with her boys.
Up to 75% of women will experience a prolapse in their lifetime. 1 in 3 will experience urine incontinence and 1 in 10 faecal incontinence. Around 60% of women experience diastasis recti. Add in pelvic girdle pain, a hypertonic pelvic floor, perineal and vulva trauma, vaginismus, vulva varicosities, anal fissures and haemorrhoids and most women, at some point, will describe their body as feeling broken.
Midwives play a crucial role in assisting women in the prevention and treatment of these conditions. International guidelines and clinical standards advise that pregnant and postpartum people should be doing pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT). This however, is not just as simple as doing Kegels while waiting at traffic lights. In order to provide best care, midwives need a deeper understanding of the physiology of the core and pelvic floor in pregnancy, birth and postpartum.
This presentation will enable a deeper understanding of the physiology of the core and pelvic floor during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. You will learn practical techniques to assist women in protecting their core and pelvic floor during these stages, including how best to support physiological birth and what we can do when interventions occur. We will also cover techniques and realities for postpartum healing and evidence-based advice to managing existing conditions.
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