Ladies - we need to talk to you about the pelvic floor muscles. Yes, pelvic floor. If you’ve never heard about it or wonder if we’re talking about home renovation, we’ve got a short explanation. The pelvic floor muscles including the levator ani and the coccygeus are muscles in the bottom of your body that support what we call the “pelvic floor organs”. The pelvic floor organs differ from men and women. Not by shape but because the pelvic floor supports men’s bladder and bowel, so two openings on the pelvic floor for men while it supports women’s bladder, bowel, and (surprise!) women’s uterus - so three openings for women.
What on earth is the pelvic floor?
But let’s focus on you ladies with women’s pelvic floor muscles. As you can see below the pelvic floor muscles are attached to the pubic bone and to the tailbone (coccyx). The tailbone being the base of the spine. The three pelvic floor organs, here the bladder, the bowel and the uterus lie on these very flexible pelvic floor muscles and rely on them for stretching and contracting. When you contract the pelvic floor muscles, the openings to these organs supported by the pelvic floor muscles (we’re talking here about the entry of the vagina, and also about the entries of the urethra, and anus that are known as sphincters) tighten and so nothing is released from your body. On the other hand, when nature calls, for example, you need to relax them to release urine, etc.