what is specialist pregnancy, post natal & women’s health physiotherapy?
Barefoot Birmingham is one of the few West Midlands Physiotherapy clinics to offer a specialist Pregnancy, Post Natal & Women’s Health Physiotherapy service. Fiona Mitchell is one of the UK’s leading Physiotherapists in this area and also works with some of the international leading experts in this area including Marie Elliot. Barefoot is also one of the only Physiotherapy clinics in the UK to run internationally recognised Physiotherapy courses in this specialist area. Lisa is one of the UK’s most specialised pelvic health physios with expertise from Women’s health to Paediatric pelvic health. Sundeep combines her clinic work with being an experienced Physiotherapy lecturer and researcher in Leicester University. Gerard teaches on Pelvic health courses with Dr Ruth Jones and Maria Elliot.

what do specialist pregnancy physiotherapists do?
The answer is, they can do a lot!

• They treat pelvic girdle pain ante and post-natally
• Can make a big difference post-natally to your tummy gap (rectus diastasis)
• Can help you return to sport post natally
• Work with female athletes who may have a pelvic problem i.e. triathlete, cross fit, runner
• Assess and treat urinary incontinence (urinary leak) successfully
• Assess and treat a pelvic organ prolapse
• See patients with bowel problems maybe post surgery, post-natally
• See very complex patients who have pelvic pain and have been through a lot of investigations for this
• See very complex patients who have been referred for pain on sexual or sexual related problems

Check out our blog to see in detail what Fiona does:


can i have treatment even though i’m pregnant?
Yes, we see a lot of women in the clinic and we get really great results with them. Treatment consists of very gentle joint techniques around your pelvis and spine, gentle soft tissue techniques to relax some of the muscles in spasm, specialist taping to give you more confidence in moving and reduce some of the apprehension, specialist pregnancy exercises that are safe to do. More importantly we will explain in detail what is going on and what you can do to help at home. Sleep can be a big problem for women with pelvic girdle pain and we spend a lot of time sorting this out with you. Everything is a bit better when we get some sleep especially when there is a new baby on the way!

i've heard about it but what is the mummy m.o.t.
The Mummy MOT is a 6 week physio led check focusing on:

• Tummy gap
• Pelvic floor function
• Pelvic and low back check
• Posture
• Breathing

Fiona and Sundeep have developed a great reputation in The West Midlands for their Mummy MOT which gives the women they work with the confidence to return to their normal activities, look after their baby and return to optimum health, activity and function. It gives the busy new mum an opportunity to prioritise her health and body also, and a chance to ask those burning questions... Make time for yourself even though it's difficult. Fiona and Sundeep also work closely with Maria Elliot (Harley St Physio) who designed the Mummy MOT. Gerard also runs a lot of joint events with Maria, so she is a regular visitor to Barefoot.