Episode 3: Preparing Your Body For Birth - Internal Release Work with Bodyworker Lo Mathias

Lo Mathias | Tall Trees Pelvic Care | Endorsed Midwife, Internal Pelvic Release Practitioner

Lo Mathias (talltreespelviccare.com.au) is an endorsed midwife based in Canberra specialising in internal pelvic release work — a deeply embodied approach to preparing the body for birth and healing postpartum. Lo also offers scar work and closing the bones ceremonies to women preparing for birth and recovering postpartum.

A few days before recording this conversation I had my first session with Lo, seven months postpartum. I want to be honest about what that was like , because I think a lot of women will hear the words internal pelvic release and feel exactly what I felt. A combination of curiosity and apprehension. After everything my body had been through in labour and birth, the idea of anyone going near that space again felt confronting.

But what Lo does is not what you experience in a standard clinical setting. It is slow. It is guided entirely by you. And for me it was less about fixing something and more about reclaiming something , reconnecting with a space that had been poked and prodded and monitored, on my own terms. 

Lo also introduced me to an idea that softness is a skill. That the body’s ability to yield and release tension is something we actually have to learn , because most of us have spent our whole lives being told to be strong, to hold it in, to tighten up. And then we arrive at birth and wonder why we can’t let go.

In this episode we cover what internal pelvic release actually is and how it differs from a physio assessment, why our culture’s relationship to tightness and strength works against the birthing body, the connection between physical tension and failure to progress, scar work for both cesarean and perineal scars, and the traditional postpartum ceremony of closing the bones.

SHOW NOTES

• How Lo went from marine biology to midwifery — and why holistic thinking drew her to both [00:28]

• Why internal pelvic release is considered fringe — and why Lo thinks that says more about Western medicine than the work itself [04:45]

• How a session works: from anatomy education and external body work to the intentional slowness of internal release [10:13]

• Why women say they’re ready before their body is — and why that distinction matters [12:58]

• The disembodied culture problem: why we outsource wisdom about our own bodies and what that costs us in labour [19:17]

• How physical tension, pelvic tightness and the cultural value of strength contribute to failure to progress [29:10]

• The cascade: how one intervention leads to another, and why preventative body work during pregnancy matters more than tools in labour [34:39]

• Scar work for cesarean and perineal scars: going through the layers, restoring sensation and re-relating to the place your baby was born [37:51]

• Closing the bones: the traditional four-part postpartum ceremony, who it’s for, and why it’s not a one-way door [43:12]

CONNECT WITH LO

talltreespelviccare.com.au

Lo is also on Instagram. Details on her website.

Instagram: @talltreespelviccare

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Fiona Hallinan — Lo’s initial internal pelvic release teacher; her website includes a directory of trained practitioners

• The Pelvic Space, Melbourne — Fiona Hallinan  practice; directory of practitioners who have completed her training

• Naomi Vinavar — Mexican midwife and closing the bones teacher; Art of Birth website

• Tracy Anderson-Askew, Transform Parenting — mentioned in conversation around nervous system work and outsourcing wisdom

• Dr Rachel Reed — referenced in conversation around mixed messaging women receive from the hospital system

• Spinning Babies — mentioned in the context of breech presentation