This week The Pelvic Rehab Report is featuring faculty member (and senior TA) Mora Pluchino, teaching assistant Amanda Moe, and faculty member Dawn Sandalcidi on the topic of pediatric issues from infancy through adolescence. Our first guest blogger, Mora Pluchino, PT, DPT, PRPC has published two books. The first of which is titled The Poop Train: Helping Your Child Understand Their Digestive System. This is a rhyming, kid-friendly book to help children understand how their poop is made. It has resources in the back to help parents and caregivers manage a child's digestive system for optimal function including proper voiding positions, ideas for activities to help voiding, fiber recommendations, fiber-filled food options, and belly massage instructions. Her second book, Practically Perfect Pelvic Health 101: A Visual Tour of the Pelvic Floor is a visual tour of the pelvic floor to help all genders and all ages understand general pelvic health. You can find Mora online at https://www.practicallyperfectpt.com/ and on Instagram @practicallyperfectpt.

As a pelvic health specialist, I treat the pelvic floors for all humans of all ages. I am frequently asked the question “Why would a child need pelvic floor therapy?” The response is “So many reasons!” 

From a very young age, I had the passion to be a Physical Therapist, but it was only recently that a hidden passion was revealed, Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy. I graduated from Stockton University with my BS in Biology in 2007 and Doctorate of Physical Therapy in 2009. I have a history of pelvic health issues and had felt extremely uneasy about going to pelvic floor continuing education, so I focused on other areas early in my career like pediatrics, adult neuro, acute care, and wound care.

As a little girl, I dealt with Pelvic Floor Dysfunction due to tight pelvic floor muscles, with frequent urinary tract infections, and an overactive bladder. Then as a teen, I had pain with penetration, from tampons to speculums and later during sexual activities. Luckily, I was treated by a Pelvic Health Specialist who helped me to have a full and active lifestyle without pain and irritation but it took me a long time to find help with the right provider. I have experienced pregnancy (and most of the common complications including morning sickness, preterm labor & pelvic pain) and complicated childbirth that ended in a cesarean section. My daughter also experiences many of the common pediatric pelvic floor issues like constipation, post-void dribbling, and bedwetting.

When a coworker of mine was looking for someone to help her with our company’s Pelvic Floor program, I found the personal courage to go and take Pelvic Floor Level 1 with Herman & Wallace. I had always had the interest and the personal experiences, but I needed to find the right situation to delve into it all; enter Herman & Wallace. I cannot overstate how welcomed, safe, educated, and reassured I felt beginning my journey with Lila Abbate and Dustienne Miller. I signed up for my next course while still attending that first course, and there was no limit to the number of continuing education courses from Herman and Wallace I wished to attend over the next two years. Herman and Wallace had woken up a passion in me I didn’t even know I yearned for. I wanted to know anything, everything about pelvic floors. The next logical step to assure myself and my patients that I was an advanced practitioner in this area was to take my PRPC which I completed in May 2019.