Pelvic Girdle Pain: The Crisis Hiding Behind Britain’s Maternal Health Headlines

More than 60% of women in the UK live with at least one symptom of poor pelvic-floor health. Around one in three women experience urinary incontinence just three months after giving birth.

These figures are staggering, especially in 2025, a time when healthcare and technology are advancing faster than ever. And yet, in maternal health, we are failing to translate this progress into preventative support for mothers.

Right now, over 586,000 women in the UK are waiting for a “non-urgent” gynaecology appointment. Non-urgent today, perhaps. But by the time many are finally seen, symptoms have worsened, distress has deepened, and quality of life has already suffered.

Recently, the BBC highlighted the story of a mother whose pelvic girdle pain started in her first trimester and deteriorated so severely that she required a wheelchair by the end of pregnancy. Stories like hers are not rare — just rarely heard.

And this raises the question:
Could early, personalised, preventative care have changed her outcome?

A System That Reacts Instead of Prevents

From our founders’ experience as a nurse, we know that the care mothers receive in early pregnancy is inconsistent. At the 6–8 week booking appointment:

• Some midwives recommend gentle exercise

• Others are unsure whether movement is safe

• Many mothers leave confused, anxious, and unsupported

Exactly at the moment when early guidance is most crucial.

What is often missing are simple, targeted pelvic stability exercises that strengthen the glutes, deep core, and supporting musculature, all of which weaken as pregnancy progresses. With the right early interventions, cases of pelvic girdle pain can often be reduced, managed, or prevented from escalating.

In 2025, no mother should be deteriorating due to a lack of access to the right advice.

And yet, many do.
Not because the knowledge doesn’t exist, but because it isn’t reaching them.

Pelvic Pain Is Never Just Physical

Pelvic girdle pain carries a profound emotional and psychological burden. Maternal mental health is already under strain:

• 1 in 5 women experience a perinatal mental health condition

• 50% of postpartum depression cases go untreated

• Maternal suicide remains a leading cause of death in the first postnatal year

When a mother cannot walk, sleep, move, or complete basic tasks, her risk factors multiply. Sleep deprivation, hormonal fluctuation, trauma, and isolation compound one another.

It is never just one thing.
Maternal health challenges accumulate, and they are rarely addressed together.

The Systemic Blind Spot: We Treat Mothers in Silos

We talk about “maternal health”, but what we really deliver is fragmented health:

• NHS pathways treat the physical symptoms

• Mental health care sits elsewhere

• Employers handle pregnancy-related absence

• Physiotherapy waits grow longer

• Insurers intervene late

• Social circumstances are barely considered

Yet every one of these factors affects the others.

To understand a mother’s health, we must consider:

• her socioeconomic position

• her job demands

• her support network

• her cultural context

• her physical and emotional load

• her environment

• her mental wellbeing

• her ability to access care

Pelvic health is never simply physiological.
It is psychological, emotional, social and economic.

The Cost of Inaction: For Mothers, Babies, Employers and the NHS

When we fail to intervene early, the effects ripple outward:

Impact on the mother:

Pain, immobility, fear, anxiety, loss of independence.

Impact on the baby:

A mother’s stress levels directly affect infant wellbeing, bonding and early development.

Impact on the employer:

Missed days of work, reduced productivity, prolonged leave, and , in some cases, mothers leaving the workforce entirely.

Impact on the NHS:

Unnecessary appointments, delayed referrals, complex births, and expensive postnatal care — all preventable with early intervention.

Impact on the economy:

Talent loss, reduced workforce participation, lower productivity, and widened gender gaps.

And yet, none of these moving parts looks at the root cause together.

We Cannot Fix What We Do Not Trace Backwards

If we want to improve maternal health, reduce costs, and strengthen outcomes, we must ask:

• When did the first signs of pain appear?

• What early advice was given?

• What support was missing?

• What was happening emotionally and socially?

• What were the workplace pressures?

• When did the system fail to act?

Only then can we prevent mothers from reaching the crisis point.

Maternal health improves when systems talk.
When data is shared.
When care is personalised.
When the whole mother is considered, not just her symptoms.

This is the future of maternal care.

Why Matresa Exists

Matresa was built to reimagine maternal health, proactive, personalised and truly connected.
A single place where psychological, emotional, physical and socioeconomic factors are finally understood together.