Part of Pelvic floor weakness
Can a weak pelvic floor cause constipation, and what helps bowel control?
Warning signs, and when to get help
Can a weak pelvic floor cause constipation?
In part, and the word weak is doing more harm than good here. Splitting the question into two jobs is what makes it answerable.
The pelvic floor holds on and it lets go. Holding on is what keeps wind and stool in until you choose, and when that side fails you get leakage. The NHS names weaker muscles around your bottom as one cause of bowel incontinence, alongside ageing, hormonal changes and childbirth.
Letting go is the side involved in constipation, and it is not a strength problem. Emptying needs the tummy muscles to generate pressure at the same moment the pelvic floor and the ring of muscle around the back passage relax and open. If they tighten instead, or simply fail to coordinate, the stool meets a closed exit no matter how hard you push.
So yes, the pelvic floor is often part of constipation. No, strengthening it is not automatically the answer, and for some people it is the opposite of the answer.
Why the problem is often a floor that will not relax, not a weak one
This is the part that changes what you should do, so here it is with the numbers.
Rao and Patcharatrakul's review describes dyssynergic defecation as an acquired behavioral problem in which people cannot coordinate the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles well enough to pass stool, and reports that it affects up to one half of patients with chronic constipation. Half. Not a rare subtype.
Continence Health Australia says it in a sentence on its men's pelvic floor page: constipation or difficulty emptying the bowel can be a sign of tight or overactive muscles. That is a national continence organization telling men that their bowel symptom may mean too much tone rather than too little.
The clues we look for in clinic are ones you can recognize yourself.
You strain for a long time and little arrives. You feel you have not finished, and go back twenty minutes later. You press on the perineum or inside the vagina to get anything out, which is called splinting. You hold your breath and bear down hard. And the pattern that gives it away most reliably: things got worse, not better, when you started doing more pelvic floor squeezes.
None of that is a diagnosis from a page. The test for it is an examination, and in many places that means a referral to a pelvic health physiotherapist or a gastroenterology service.
Can pelvic floor exercises make constipation worse?
If emptying is your problem and you have been given a strengthening program, yes, it can, and that is a reasonable thing to have suspected.
Think about what the exercise trains. A long hold trains the floor to stay closed. A quick squeeze trains it to close fast. Neither trains it to open at the right moment while the tummy pushes, which is the thing that is failing. Spend three months doing nothing but closing drills on a muscle that already will not open, and the most likely result is more straining, not less.
The treatment evidence points the same way. Chiarioni and colleagues took 109 patients with chronic severe pelvic floor dyssynergia who had not responded to 20 g of fiber a day plus enemas or suppositories, and randomized them to either five weekly biofeedback sessions or polyethylene glycol with five weekly counseling sessions on preventing constipation. At 6 months, 43 of 54 in the biofeedback group reported major improvement, which is 80 percent, against 12 of 55, or 22 percent, in the laxative group. The benefit held at 12 months and at 24. Straining, the sense of incomplete emptying, the feeling of blockage, enema and suppository use and abdominal pain all came down more in the biofeedback group.
Rao and colleagues found the same direction in a three-arm trial of 77 people, comparing biofeedback with sham feedback and with standard therapy of diet, exercise and laxatives. Biofeedback corrected the dyssynergia more often, shortened the time taken to expel a balloon, increased complete spontaneous bowel movements and reduced the use of digital maneuvers.
Both of those are retraining the relaxation and the coordination, with a clinician and with feedback. That is a different activity from a set of Kegels, and it is what to ask for if the picture above is yours. Rao and Patcharatrakul's review puts it as plainly as a review does: biofeedback therapy has been recommended as the first-line treatment for dyssynergic defecation.
Pelvic floor dysfunction and constipation: what that term covers
Pelvic floor dysfunction is an umbrella, and the trouble with umbrellas is that the treatment sits under the specific diagnosis rather than the heading.
Under it you will find at least four different situations that produce bowel symptoms. A floor that will not relax or coordinate on emptying, which is the dyssynergic defecation above. A floor that is weak, which shows up as leakage of wind or stool, not as constipation. A prolapse, where the NHS lists constipation and other bowel problems among the symptoms, and where the bowel bulging forward into the vagina can give the sense that nothing will come out. And a floor that is painful and tender, which can produce both straining and pain on opening your bowels, and which is the one most likely to be made worse by strengthening.
The prolapse version has a recognizable pattern, and POGP's prolapse guide lists it: with a back wall prolapse, in front of the back passage, there is difficulty emptying or incomplete emptying that leads to straining more than normal, wind or bowel leakage and smearing at the anus, bowel urgency, and sometimes a need to press around the vagina or the anus with your fingers to empty at all. If that is your picture, the prolapse is the thing to get assessed rather than the constipation on its own. UK guidance treats these symptoms as worth looking into rather than living with: for women with pelvic organ prolapse, NICE suggests considering investigation of symptoms of obstructed defaecation or faecal incontinence (NG123, recommendation 1.6.7), and it also suggests lifestyle advice that includes preventing or treating constipation in the first place (1.7.2).
The practical use of that list is to stop you self-prescribing. The question that decides your program is not whether you have pelvic floor dysfunction, it is which of those four you have, and that is settled by an examination rather than by a symptom checklist.
Pelvic floor exercises for bowel control and bowel leakage
For holding on, strengthening is the right idea, and the evidence is weaker than you would hope.
A Cochrane review by Norton and Cody pooled 21 randomized or quasi-randomized trials with 1,525 adults with fecal incontinence, spelled faecal incontinence in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and in the review's own title. Signals of benefit appeared in several comparisons, including adding biofeedback to exercises and adding electrical stimulation to biofeedback, but most of those came from one or two small trials, and the review found insufficient evidence to choose between specific methods. The authors' conclusion was that larger well-designed trials are needed to enable safe conclusions, which is as close as a Cochrane review gets to saying we are not sure yet.
The NHS names ageing, hormonal changes and childbirth among the reasons those muscles become weaker, and the pelvic floor in menopause covers what changes around that time and what training does and does not reach.
The NHS route is more useful than a home program here. It says a specialist service may recommend exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor and the muscles around your bottom, usually with biofeedback, together with techniques to help you empty your bowels fully and a routine for doing it. Ask your doctor for that referral if you leak wind or stool, and do not wait years out of embarrassment. New leaking or an inability to hold on is in the warning list at the foot of this page.
While you wait, the squeezes themselves are the same ones as for the bladder, and the staged pelvic floor program sets them out: long holds and quick squeezes, with the muscle let go fully after each one, starting with pelvic floor exercise lying down. Your physio will adjust this. If you have had an operation for prolapse or for leaking, or prostate or other urological surgery, do not start on your own: your surgical team sets the date and the dose, and Continence Health Australia's instruction to men is to wait until your surgeon has checked your healing before starting pelvic floor muscle exercises. If you have recently given birth, including by cesarean section, or you have a gap down the middle of your stomach muscles (diastasis recti), ask your physio, midwife or doctor first.
How you sit and what you do on the toilet
Five minutes of habit change is worth more than a month of squeezes for a lot of people with difficult emptying, and all of it comes from national guidance.
The NHS suggests keeping to a regular time and place and giving yourself plenty of time on the toilet, and says resting your feet on a low stool may help. It is direct about the urge: do not delay if you feel you need to go. Its page on leaks adds the reason this matters for the rest of the pelvic floor, that straining to poo weakens the pelvic floor muscles and makes urinary incontinence worse, and that you should never ignore the urge.
Continence Health Australia puts straining into a weekly self-check for men, asking whether you avoided straining on the toilet, which is a good way to think about it: a habit to audit rather than a one-off instruction.
POGP's prolapse guide sets out the same habits as a short list, and it is the most specific version we have found in print.
- Do not strain.
- Sit fully on the toilet rather than hovering, which is what lets the right muscles relax.
- Have your feet apart and raised up on a stool or support, with your arms resting comfortably on your legs.
- Keep your tummy relaxed and do not tighten your abdominals.
- Avoid holding your breath, and aim for a relaxed breathing pattern instead.
The part people leave out is the end of it. Give it time, and if nothing happens, get up and come back later instead of straining for ten minutes.
There is one hands-on technique worth knowing about, and it is better learned from someone who has examined you than worked out alone. POGP's prolapse guide describes perineal splinting in its own patient advice: supporting the perineum, the area between the back passage and the vagina, or applying pressure vaginally on the bulging wall toward the back passage, which some women find empties the bowel more fully. So it is a recognized technique, not a bad habit.
The reason we would still have it checked is what it tells you: needing to splint to empty at all is one of the symptoms NICE says to consider investigating in a woman with a prolapse. If you are already doing it, say so at your appointment, because it is a useful piece of information rather than something to be embarrassed about. What it does not change is the rule it sits next to, which is POGP's own: do not push or strain to empty, because that can increase the prolapse.
Diet and fluid are part of it too, and are not a physio's call. The NHS advises increasing fiber gradually, with wheat bran, oats or linseed as options, drinking plenty of water and other fluids, and a daily walk or run. If that has not helped, it directs you to a pharmacist, noting that most laxatives work within 3 days and should be used only for a short time.
Medicines are worth raising at the same time, because the NHS lists constipation as a side effect of some of them and tells you to see a doctor if one of yours is causing it. Never stop or change a prescribed medicine on your own. Diaphragmatic breathing is worth learning if the breath holding is the habit you cannot shift.
Constipation and the rest of the pelvic floor: the two feed each other
Constipation is more than a symptom of a pelvic floor problem. It is also one of the things that creates one, which is why it keeps appearing on lists of causes.
The NHS states that straining to poo weakens the pelvic floor muscles and makes urinary incontinence worse. Forner and colleagues, surveying 3,934 women about prolapse symptoms, found a history of constipation or hemorrhoids among the factors significantly associated with reporting a vaginal bulge. Continence Health Australia lists long-term constipation among the things that put a pelvic floor at risk, next to a long-term cough and regular heavy lifting.
POGP gives the mechanism and the consequence in the same breath. Long-term constipation and straining to empty your bowels may make a prolapse more likely, or make an existing one worse, because the pressure in the abdomen is directed down onto the pelvic floor and strains and stretches it. Its first instruction for anyone with a prolapse is to avoid constipation, with plenty of fruit, vegetables and fiber, and enough to drink, which it puts at 1.5 to 2 liters of fluid a day. Cutting fluids to reduce trips to the toilet works against you twice over, since it does not reliably reduce them and it raises your chance of becoming constipated.
So a bladder problem and a bowel problem in the same person are not a coincidence to be treated separately. In clinic, sorting out the straining often does more for the leaking than the next progression of the exercises would have. If pain around the tailbone is part of your picture, tailbone pain covers that, because the pelvic floor attaches there and the two problems often arrive together.
Pelvic floor and constipation in men
Men type this question too, and the one source that addresses them directly is specific about it.
Continence Health Australia's men's pelvic floor page names constipation or straining on the toilet as factors that affect the pelvic floor muscles, and goes further: it says constipation or difficulty emptying the bowel can be a sign of tight or overactive muscles. It also gives men a technique and a dose, a 3-second hold building toward 5 to 8 seconds, 3 to 5 squeezes per set building toward 8 to 10, three times a day, resting the muscle for as long as you held it between one squeeze and the next, and the mirror check of the penis drawing slightly in and the testicles lifting. One caution from the same source, and it comes before any program. If you have had prostate or other urological surgery, Continence Health Australia's advice is to wait until your surgeon has checked your healing before starting pelvic floor exercises, and the timings and the program come from the team that operated.
What is missing for men, as with most of this subject, is research. The constipation and dyssynergia trials above included men and women, so that half carries across. The pelvic floor training evidence is overwhelmingly in women. A man whose main problem is difficult emptying should be asking about the coordination retraining rather than about squeezes.
What to get checked, and when
Some bowel symptoms are not a pelvic floor question at all, and those come first.
The warning list at the foot of this page sorts them by how fast.
Numbness around the genitals or bottom, or suddenly losing control of your bladder or bowels alongside back or leg symptoms, is an emergency, as is a bladder that will not empty at all. A bloated, swollen tummy with a sudden severe ache, or vomiting blood, is an emergency.
Blood in your poo, bleeding from your bottom, or a change in your poo or how often you go that is not normal for you needs a doctor within a few days, and sooner if the poo is black or dark red. So does any bleeding from the vagina after your menopause. Losing weight without trying is on the list too, and where it sends you depends on what comes with it. Red flags in physiotherapy explains why we treat these as a separate set of questions rather than as a footnote to a program.
For the rest, the appointment is worth making earlier than most people make it. See your doctor if constipation is not improving with diet, fluid and treatment from a pharmacist, if you leak wind or stool, if you strain or splint to empty, or if you feel you never finish. Ask specifically about a pelvic health physio or physical therapist, or a continence service, and say which of the two jobs is failing, holding on or letting go. That one sentence is what sends you to the right program. If you are in the first months after a birth, postnatal core and pelvic floor covers what to expect and what to report, and wind or poo coming out of the vagina needs advice the same day at any point.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: numbness, tingling or altered feeling around or under your genitals, between your inner thighs, or around your bottom (anus), for example it feels different when you wipe after using the toilet. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. This can be a sign of pressure on the bundle of nerves at the base of the spine (cauda equina syndrome), which needs emergency treatment.
- Emergency: you suddenly cannot control your bladder or bowels at all. The same applies to new leaking of pee or poo, new trouble starting to pee, not being able to feel yourself peeing, not noticing when you need to poo, a new change in how your genitals feel during sex, or new trouble getting an erection or ejaculating, if it comes with back pain, sciatica, or pain, tingling, numbness or weakness in one or both legs. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. These can also be signs of cauda equina syndrome.
- Emergency: you cannot pee at all, especially if your lower tummy feels full and painful. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away.
- Emergency: a bloated, swollen tummy together with a severe tummy ache that came on very suddenly, vomiting blood or vomit that looks like ground coffee, or severe trouble breathing where you are gasping, choking or cannot get words out. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
- Emergency: a lump at or near your belly button, along the middle of your tummy or at your cesarean scar, together with pain that is severe or came on suddenly, not being able to poo or pass wind at all, vomiting blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds, or suddenly becoming confused. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not try to push the lump back in yourself.
- Emergency: since any operation in your pelvis, including an operation for prolapse or for leaking, removal of the womb (hysterectomy) or removal of the prostate gland, you have pain in your tummy or pelvis that is severe or came on suddenly, a wound from the operation that opens up, bleeding that suddenly becomes much heavier or that soaks a pad within an hour, or you feel faint, dizzy or breathless, your heart is pounding, or you feel very unwell. Stop your pelvic floor exercises and call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
Get help today
- Same day: bloating or a swollen tummy together with being sick, diarrhea or constipation, a tummy ache, a high temperature or feeling hot, cold or shivery, a swelling or lump in your tummy, not being able to pee, poo or pass wind, or heartburn with acid coming up into your throat, without any of the emergency signs above. Get medical advice the same day.
- A soft lump at or near your belly button, along the middle of your tummy or at your cesarean scar that gets bigger when you cough or strain, or that gets smaller or disappears when you lie down. This can be a hernia, so see your doctor, and see one even if you already know you have a gap, because the two can be there together. If the lump becomes painful or tender, if it used to flatten when you lay down and now stays up, or if you have a bloated tummy, you feel or are being sick, you are constipated, or you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, get medical help straight away, the same day, for example at urgent care or an emergency department, and do not try to push the lump back in yourself. If the pain is severe or came on suddenly, or you cannot poo or pass wind at all, call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away.
- Losing weight without trying. If you are being treated for cancer now, contact your cancer team the same day.
- Losing weight without trying. If you also have new back or neck pain, get medical advice the same day.
- Wind or poo coming out of your vagina. Get medical advice the same day, as this needs checking urgently.
- Same day: since an operation for prolapse or for leaking, you have a fever or feel hot, cold or shivery, heavy bleeding from your vagina or blood clots, discharge that smells, a wound from the operation that is oozing or whose edges are coming apart, or pain in your pelvis that is new or getting worse quickly. Stop your pelvic floor exercises and contact your surgical team, or the ward you went home from, the same day, and if you cannot reach them get medical help the same day anyway, for example at urgent care or an emergency department. These can be signs of an infection or of bleeding from the repair. If the pain becomes severe or comes on suddenly, a wound from the operation opens up, the bleeding suddenly becomes much heavier, or you feel faint, dizzy, breathless or very unwell, call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away rather than waiting for a call back, and do not drive yourself.
- Same day: since an operation in your pelvis for any other reason, for example removal of the womb (hysterectomy) or removal of the prostate gland, you have a fever or feel hot, cold or shivery, heavy bleeding, discharge that smells, a wound from the operation that is oozing or whose edges are coming apart, or pain in your pelvis that is new or getting worse quickly. Stop your pelvic floor exercises and contact your surgical team, or the ward you went home from, the same day, and if you cannot reach them get medical help the same day anyway, for example at urgent care or an emergency department. These can be signs of an infection or of bleeding. If the pain becomes severe or comes on suddenly, a wound from the operation opens up, the bleeding suddenly becomes much heavier, or you feel faint, dizzy, breathless or very unwell, call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away rather than waiting for a call back, and do not drive yourself.
- Same day: since any operation in your pelvis, a calf or thigh that is newly swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that feels different from normal muscle soreness. Stop your pelvic floor exercises and get medical advice the same day, because surgery in the pelvis raises the risk of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis). If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
Book an appointment
- Blood in your poo, bleeding from your bottom, or a change in your poo or how often you need to go that is not normal for you. See your doctor within a few days. If your poo is black or dark red, or you have bloody diarrhea, get medical advice the same day. If you are bleeding non-stop from your bottom, or there is a lot of blood or you see large clots, call emergency services.
- Losing weight without trying. See your doctor within a day or two and mention it.
- Within a few days: any bleeding from your vagina after your menopause, including spotting or pink or brown discharge, even if it is only a small amount, only happened once, or came on during or after sex. Book an appointment with your doctor within a few days. Bleeding after the menopause is usually not serious, but it has to be checked, because it can be a sign of cancer, and cancer found early is easier to treat.
- Routine: poo or wind leaking out when you cannot stop it, not reaching the toilet in time, not being able to get fully clean after going to the toilet, streaks or stains of poo in your underwear, or finding that you no longer notice when you need to go, without any of the signs above. Book an appointment with your doctor, as there are treatments that help, and ask about a pelvic health physio or a continence service.
- Routine: constipation that is not getting better after you have changed your diet and fluids and tried treatment from a pharmacist, that keeps coming back, that is new and has lasted several weeks, or that started when you began a new medicine such as an opioid painkiller. Book an appointment with your doctor, and say if you are also straining, feel you never finish, have to press or splint to empty, are bloated most of the time, or feel tired all the time.
- Routine: a bulge or lump you can feel or see inside or coming out of your vagina, or a feeling of heaviness or pressure in your lower tummy or vagina. Book an appointment with your doctor. This can be a sign of pelvic organ prolapse, and pelvic floor exercises are often part of the treatment once it has been checked.
- Routine: since an operation for prolapse or for leaking, the bulge, the heaviness or the leaking you had it done for has come back or is getting worse, or you have new pain, new bleeding or discharge from your vagina, or new trouble peeing or pooing. Stop your pelvic floor exercises and book an appointment with your surgical team rather than waiting for your next routine review. A repair can give way, and after mesh surgery these are also the symptoms a specialist checks the mesh for. Which of those it is takes an examination, and it is not something this page or a physiotherapist can tell you.
Common questions
How does a weak pelvic floor cause constipation?
The honest version is that weakness is rarely the mechanism for constipation, and failure to relax usually is. Passing stool needs the tummy muscles to push while the pelvic floor and the ring of muscle around the back passage let go, at the same moment. When that coordination fails, pushing harder tightens the exit instead of opening it, which is the pattern called dyssynergic defecation (Rao 2016). Where a weak pelvic floor does play a part is in the other direction, in trouble holding on, and in a prolapse of the bowel into the vagina, which the NHS lists constipation and bowel problems among the symptoms of.
Can pelvic floor exercises cause constipation?
A program of harder and longer squeezes can certainly make emptying harder if the floor was already overactive, and that is a common reason people arrive in a pelvic health clinic worse than when they started. It is not an argument against the exercises in general. It is an argument for knowing which problem you have before you pick a program, because the same muscle needs strengthening for leakage and retraining for emptying. If your bowels got worse after you started squeezes, stop them and get the muscle examined rather than pushing on.
Do pelvic floor exercises improve bowel control?
Probably, modestly, on limited evidence. A Cochrane review of 21 randomized or quasi-randomized trials in 1,525 adults with fecal incontinence found suggestions of benefit, including from adding biofeedback to exercises, but the trials were small and methodologically weak, and the authors concluded that larger well-designed trials are needed before safe conclusions can be drawn (Norton 2012). The NHS says a specialist service may recommend exercises to strengthen your pelvic floor and the muscles around your bottom, usually with biofeedback, alongside bowel retraining. That is the route to ask for rather than a home program alone.
Can you do pelvic floor exercises sitting down?
Yes. Continence Health Australia says the exercises can be done sitting, lying or standing, and most people find them easiest lying down at first and hardest standing, which is why a program usually works through all three positions. One thing not to do, from POGP: do not practice by stopping your flow of urine. Use that picture to find the muscles, then do the actual exercises when you are not on the toilet, and do not use the toilet as the place to do your sets.
References
- Rao SS, Patcharatrakul T. Diagnosis and Treatment of Dyssynergic Defecation. Journal of Neurogastroenterology and Motility. 2016;22(3):423-435. https://doi.org/10.5056/jnm16060
- Chiarioni G, Whitehead WE, Pezza V, Morelli A, Bassotti G. Biofeedback is superior to laxatives for normal transit constipation due to pelvic floor dyssynergia. Gastroenterology. 2006;130(3):657-664. https://doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2005.11.014
- Rao SS, Seaton K, Miller M, et al. Randomized controlled trial of biofeedback, sham feedback, and standard therapy for dyssynergic defecation. Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. 2007;5(3):331-338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cgh.2006.12.023
- Norton C, Cody JD. Biofeedback and/or sphincter exercises for the treatment of faecal incontinence in adults. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2012;(7):CD002111. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD002111.pub3
- Forner LB, Beckman EM, Smith MD. Symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse in women who lift heavy weights for exercise: a cross-sectional survey. International Urogynecology Journal. 2020;31(8):1551-1558. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-019-04163-w
- NHS. Constipation. Page last reviewed 26 October 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/constipation/
- NHS. Bowel incontinence. Page last reviewed 15 August 2024. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bowel-incontinence/
- NHS. Bleeding from the bottom (rectal bleeding). Page last reviewed 12 April 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/bleeding-from-the-bottom-rectal-bleeding/
- NHS. Pelvic organ prolapse. Page last reviewed 3 July 2025. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pelvic-organ-prolapse/
- NHS. Urinary incontinence: 10 ways to stop leaks. Page last reviewed 15 June 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/urinary-incontinence/10-ways-to-stop-leaks/
- Continence Health Australia. Pelvic floor exercises for men. https://www.continence.org.au/living-with-incontinence/pelvic-floor-exercises/pelvic-floor-exercises-for-men/
- Pelvic, Obstetric and Gynaecological Physiotherapy (POGP). Pelvic floor muscles. https://thepogp.co.uk/patients/pelvic_health_advice/pelvic_floor_muscles.aspx
- Pelvic, Obstetric and Gynaecological Physiotherapy (POGP). Pelvic Organ Prolapse: a guide for women. POGP 2020, 2023. https://thepogp.co.uk/Resources/9/pelvic_organ_prolapse_a_physiotherapy_guide_for_women
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse in women: management (NICE guideline NG123). Published 2 April 2019, last updated 24 June 2019. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng123
- NHS. Hysterectomy: recovery. Page last reviewed 11 October 2022. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/hysterectomy/recovery/
- NHS. Postmenopausal bleeding. Page last reviewed 24 September 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/post-menopausal-bleeding/
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-22.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.