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What Can You Do About Prolapse?

Answer:

There’s no quick fix for a prolapse, and what helps is different for every woman. For most, it’s about managing symptoms so you can feel more comfortable and get on with your life.

The main options are changes to how you lift, move and use your bowels, pelvic floor exercises, a pessary, and for some women, surgery. Many women use more than one.

Start with a proper check

Before you make changes on your own, it helps to have your prolapse checked by a health professional. They can tell you which type you have, how far it has dropped, and what’s likely to help you most.

You can start with your GP. If you had private care, you may still be under your obstetrician’s care for the first few months after birth. A women’s health physiotherapist can also check your pelvic floor and guide you, either privately without a referral or through the public system, where there’s usually a wait.

For free, confidential advice while you wait, you can call the National Continence Helpline on

1800 33 00 66.

Finding out you have a prolapse can come as a shock, especially as it’s rarely talked about before birth.

Everyone reacts differently. For some women, it changes how they feel about their body, sex or exercise. Others take it in their stride. There’s no right way to feel about it.

If it’s weighing on you, talking to someone you trust or a health professional can help.

PANDA (1300 726 306) also offers support for your emotional health as a new parent.

Caring for a baby is hard physical work. You’re lifting, carrying, bending and feeding all day, often on very little sleep, and there’s no option to stop.

There’s also a lot of pressure to just get on with it. You might feel you should be back to normal by now, or that you can’t slow down when everyone is relying on you. Being told to avoid heavy lifting can feel impossible when the heaviest thing you lift is your baby.

Managing a prolapse in the middle of all this takes real effort. Small changes, support from the people around you, and the right advice can make it more manageable.

Some simple changes to how you move can help you feel more comfortable:

  • Breathe out as you lift. Gently squeeze your pelvic floor as you breathe out and lift your baby, the pram or the shopping.
  • Keep heavy lifting to a minimum. Where you can, share the load, make two trips or ask for help.
  • Rest when symptoms build. Lying down for a while, even for a few minutes, can ease the heaviness.
  • Let your symptoms guide you. When building up your activity, notice how your pelvic floor feels during and after, and adjust if heaviness gets worse.

Pelvic floor exercises are often the first thing you’ll be offered for a prolapse. They’re free, you can do them at home, and they help build strength and support in your pelvic floor.

For some women, they ease symptoms like heaviness. They don’t usually make a prolapse go away, and the research on how much they help with prolapse symptoms is still limited.

A health professional can check how your pelvic floor is working and guide you on the right exercises for you, including whether you need to work on strength, relaxation or both.

A pessary is a small, soft device that sits inside your vagina to support it. It doesn’t fix a prolapse, but it can ease symptoms like heaviness. It needs to be fitted by a trained health professional.

There are many types, and different ways to use them. Some women wear one just for exercise or a busy day, while others leave it in for longer.

Using pessaries in younger women after birth is still fairly new, so there isn’t long-term research yet. You may hear that you can do anything with a pessary in, like heavy lifting, without making your prolapse worse. We don’t know that yet, so talk it through with the person who fits yours.

We’ll cover pessaries in more detail in a separate article.

For some women, surgery is an option when symptoms are having a big impact on daily life and other options haven’t helped enough.

Many women are advised to wait until they’ve finished having children, as a future pregnancy and birth can affect the repair. Surgery also means a recovery period with limits on lifting, which can be hard with a baby or young children to care for.

Your GP can refer you to a gynaecologist or urogynaecologist, a specialist in pelvic floor problems, to talk through whether surgery is right for you.

You don’t have to work this out on your own.

  • The National Continence Helpline: 1800 33 00 66. Free, confidential advice from a nurse continence specialist about prolapse and your pelvic floor.
  • Your obstetrician. If you had private care, you may still be under your obstetrician’s care for the first few months after birth, so you won’t need a new referral. Check with their rooms.
  • A women’s health physiotherapist. You can book privately without a referral, though there is a cost. You can also be referred through the public system, but there is usually a wait.
  • Your GP. They can examine you and refer you on to a physiotherapist or specialist.
  • PANDA: 1300 726 306. Support for your emotional health as a new parent.

 

To learn more, read our articles I’ve Been Told I Have a Prolapse. What Does It Mean? | WHEN and What Does a Prolapse Feel Like? | WHEN

Healthdirect Australia. (n.d.). Prolapsed uterus. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/prolapsed-uterus

McEvoy, K., Griffin, R., Harris, M., Moger, H., Wright, O., Nurkic, I., Thompson, J., Das, R., & Neumann, P. (2023). Pessary management practices for pelvic organ prolapse among Australian health care practitioners: a cross-sectional study. International Urogynecology Journal, 34(10), 2519-2527.

Raju, R., & Linder, B.J. (2021). Evaluation and management of pelvic organ prolapse. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 96(12), 3122-3129.

Rantell, A., Abdool, Z., Fullerton, M.E., Gedefaw, A., Lough, K., Miotla, P., Mukhtarova, N., Neumann, P., Spencer, J., Warner, K.J., & Brown, H.W. (2025). International Urogynecology Consultation Chapter 3 Committee 1: Pessary Management. International Urogynecology Journal, 36, 533-550.

Royal Women’s Hospital. (n.d.). More about pessaries. https://www.thewomens.org.au/health-information/vaginal-prolapse/more-about-pessaries

Ryhtä, I., Axelin, A., Parisod, H., Holopainen, A., & Hamari, L. (2023). Effectiveness of exercise interventions on urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse in pregnant and postpartum women: umbrella review and clinical guideline development. JBI Evidence Implementation, 21, 394-408.

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