What is a pelvic assessment? Pediatric pelvic floor therapy will look at the various factors that may contribute to your child's toileting difficulties, which may include diet, mobility, strength, abdominal presentation, toileting habits, breath control, sensation, and pelvic floor assessment.
Your child's pelvic floor is a group of muscles in their groin and helps them to keep poop and pee inside their bodies until they are ready to purposefully let those things out. This means when a child wants to prevent passing gas in an elevator, or they are holding urine until they can make it to the rest stop on a car trip - they are using their pelvic floor muscles! Just like any other muscle in the body, these muscles can become too tight, too weak, or be in poor positions that don't allow them to work properly.
Pelvic floor assessment is a great way to assess if your child knows how to appropriately push poop out, relax to let pee out, and to contract the pelvic floor to hold things in if needed (without using their buttocks!). Assessment can be through visualization of their anus as they attempt to contract, relax and bulge, or by feeling through clothing as they attempt these things, or simply through verbal discussion. Virtual therapy services can include the use of video instruction and assessment, recordings taken by family members, or instruction to family members to assess. Allowing the therapist to see their pelvis provides the most information, but every assessment is completed on a case-by-case basis.
Unconstipated Kids strongly believes in building trust, honoring your child's specific needs and comfort levels, and allowing your child to always be in charge of their body. Your child will need to feel comfortable and agree to any type of assessment, and just because they agree one day, does not mean they will agree another. Coercion, force, and manipulation are never used to achieve a specific type of assessment.
Unconstipated Kids feels strongly in educating your child and family that medical care by a specialist to address a concern in a private part of their body is appropriate only when a family member is present, that it is completed by a medical professional, and that the child agrees.
Pelvic assessment wouldn't be a part of our physical therapy treatment if it wasn't important, however just as any part of medical care, ultimately your child has autonomy over their body.
