Emma Brockwell: Pelvic health, returning to running postnatally, and research impact

Women in Sport and Exercise Academic Network Podcast

Emma Brockwell is a Specialist Pelvic Health Physiotherapist. She treats women of all ages with all women’s health-related conditions. She is passionate about pre and postnatal rehabilitation and exercise. She specialises in supporting women back to exercise, particularly running and netball if they have any pelvic health dysfunction or are postnatal. She has co-authored the first ‘Returning to Running Postnatal Guidelines’ and has spoken about this subject at many medical and exercise conferences. Over the past two years she has co-authored further publications on this subject. Emma has written for many magazines including Women’s Running and Women’s Health magazine and last year her first book called ‘Why did no one tell me? How to protect, heal and nurture your body through motherhood' was published.

Emma founded and leads a Walk and Running club, Oxted Ladies Run Club. She is on the advisory board for The Active Pregnancy Foundation and is an associate member of the Perinatal Physical Activity Research Group. She now works privately in Guildford and Godstone and is the co-presenter of the podcast, At Your Cervix – the podcast. Alongside Grainne Donnelly and Helen McElroy, she co-founded the Athletic Female an evidence-based course aimed at healthcare, fitness and medical professionals who work with female athletes.

You can follow her on Instagram @physiomumuk and find out all the links to the above on www.physiomum.co.uk

In this podcast, I talk with Emma about the key pieces of advice from the ‘Returning to Running Postnatal Guidelines’. We talk about her other work and how she has managed to create an impact. Emma also gives her thoughts on what the gaps in the research are and her future research-related projects.

Themes discussed:

• Conditions typically treat among athletes, as a Specialist Pelvic Health Physiotherapist
• The 'Return to Running Postnatal Guidelines': key advice from these recommendations
• Strongest research evidence supporting pelvic floor recovery
• Other activities (such as the ‘At Your Cervix’ podcast, recent book and the Athletic Female course) and how these have created an impact
• Athletes' response and challenges encountered
• Improving pelvic floor - is it too late?
• Research ideas for the future
• Future projects