Phase 01
Pain
Settle the symptoms.
Hands-on work and breath retraining take pressure off the pelvic floor and calm the ache that shows up by the end of the day.
What We Treat
Postpartum Recovery treatment in North Liberty.
You were cleared at your checkup and told everything looks fine. It still doesn’t feel fine. Leaking when you cough, heaviness low down, a core that won’t hold when you lift your toddler. That’s not just what happens after a baby, and it starts with a cause-first evaluation.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- You cross your legs before you sneeze, every single time
- Hauling the car seat lights up your back or your pelvis
- Something feels heavy, or like it’s sitting lower than it should
- Your core switched off somewhere along the way and never switched back on
- You went back to the workout you love and paid for it the next day
- You were told everything looks fine, so you stopped bringing it up
Two or more? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
Cleared isn’t the same as recovered.
Pregnancy and birth change how your body shares load. Your abdominal wall stretched, because that’s what it’s supposed to do. Your pelvic floor carried months of pressure and then a delivery. Your ribs, hips and breathing pattern all shifted to make room. None of that reverses itself on a schedule.
So the strength is often there, but the timing is off. Your deep core and pelvic floor arrive late, and something else covers for them. That’s what leaking, heaviness and a back that aches by bedtime are actually telling you. A cause-first evaluation finds which part of the system isn’t doing its job, and one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, you retrain it. Leave it alone and the workaround hardens into habit: you plan your day around it, and the list of things you’ve quietly stopped doing keeps growing.
The Honest Truth
Waiting doesn’t make it wait on you.
If you keep waiting
- The rest of your body starts compensating, and the compensations start hurting too
- Flare-ups get closer together, and take longer to settle each time
- You move less to avoid the pain, which weakens the exact things that were protecting you
If you start this week
- Visit one is a cause-first evaluation, and you leave knowing what we found
- Hands-on treatment starts the same day, not after a second appointment
- You get a plan with an endpoint: a real one, not an open tab of visits
Nobody regrets starting too early. Plenty of people tell us they wish they had come in sooner.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Built for postpartum.
You’ve already read everything and done the Kegels that changed nothing. That’s exactly the kind of patient who does well here. Dr. Alex Furtado, DPT, CPPC, brings over a decade across orthopedics, sports PT and pelvic health, plus her own postpartum recovery. Every plan has an endpoint.
Phase 02
Prime
Wake the deep core up.
Your abdominal wall and pelvic floor learn to fire in the right order again, on purpose, before anything gets heavy.
Phase 03
Perform
Build a core you can trust.
Real load in real positions: a toddler off the floor, a car seat into the back, a stroller up over a curb.
Phase 04
Prevent
Go do the thing you stopped doing.
Running, lifting heavy, a full sneeze with no hesitation. We test it under real load before you’re cleared, and that’s the endpoint, not another appointment.
Natalie is super professional and knowledgeable when it comes to physical therapy. Every session with her helped me get better as I was recovering postpartum. She correctly identified where the pain points were and taught me how to get relief through exercises. Would go back anytime as I know I can trust her with her art!
Shared by Harveen K. · Google review
The problem: cleared at your checkup, still leaking, still guarding
The plan: lifting, sneezing and running without thinking about it
Postpartum Recovery
Plan with an endpoint
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking.
Because a clearance visit confirms you are healing, not that you are functioning. Nobody watched you cough, lift a car seat, or stand up off the floor. Leaking, heaviness and a core that gives out are movement problems, and they only show up under load, which is exactly where a cause-first evaluation looks. You are not imagining it, and you do not have to accept it.
No. A Kegel is one exercise, and for plenty of people it is the wrong one. A pelvic floor is not always weak. Sometimes it is already too tight to relax enough to do its job. We look at breathing, ribs, hips, your abdominal wall and how the whole system times itself under load, then train the part that is actually failing. That is what one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist is for.
A full plan runs through all four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform and Prevent, and how long that takes depends on your symptoms and what you want to get back to. What you get on day one is a plan with an endpoint. You will always know which phase you are in and what is left, instead of an open-ended string of appointments.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon-Fri: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
- (319) 382-2743 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- No referral needed in Iowa
4.9 · 79 Google reviews
Typical response: under 2 business hours
Step 1 of 5
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Motion Matters Physical Therapy and Wellness
- 660 West Cherry St. Suite 2, North Liberty, IA 52317 (opens in a new tab)
- (319) 382-2743
- Fax: (319) 359-4114
- natalie@ptmotionmatters.com
- Mon-Fri: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm