Embarrassing conversations…

Should OT’s be focussing more on sexual occupations?

And why aren’t we all shouting about helping women improve life quality after POP ?!

I recently read an article about women living with pelvic organ prolapse (POP), and was humbled by a courageous woman sharing her challenging experience of managing the symptoms (CLICK HERE if you’d like to read the article).

Obviously, some of my first reflective thoughts reading this article was; An OT should be helping you with that. Seriously. Where are all of the OT’s? POP must affect so many of our clients in SO many different areas of health service provision. But I’ve never had a client volunteer this kind of issue before. I guess it’s a bit taboo, is it? Do we ever ask the questions? What would we do if someone mentioned it? Would we brush it aside, because it’s a bit awkward and personal?

I was chatting with a Women’s Health Physiotherapist recently – a very candid chat, and fascinatingly brilliant and thought-provoking, can I say?! I was sharing about my research and curiosities, and asked her opinion about where she felt a gap might be for OT’s to add value to women’s perinatal health teams. She sees a huge gap in women’s sexual health. The conversation went on, and so does my thought trail… how much do our social and cultural morays influence our perspective on judging how we are identifying and addressing occupational performance issues in perinatal health? Are we too embarrassed to ask the questions? What do OT’s know about sexual health and wellbeing? Is it our role?

I think so. But what’s there to know….? I guess it’s time I started finding out?