Anna McMaster

So many women are told pelvic floor dysfunction is just "part of motherhood." What made you unwilling to accept that?

When I learned that there was an answer, pelvic floor physical therapy, that was inaccessible to most women, that was it. I don't think it's a radical notion to want every mom to have a functioning body. Leaking, pain, feeling disconnected: those aren't separate from someone's daily experience. They're integrated into it. When half your brain is worried about whether you're going to make it to the bathroom in time, there isn't much capacity left for everything else a mother is being asked to hold.

You became a mother yourself and had a significant birth injury. How did that change your understanding of the gaps in postpartum care?

I'm a healthcare professional. I knew what to ask for. I knew the names of the procedures and the medications. I knew how to push back when a provider was dismissing me, and I did, over and over. And I still had to fight for every piece of care I got. Most women hear "it looks fine" and go home and try to live with it. That's what radicalized me. Not that postpartum recovery is hard. The realization that if I had to fight this hard, then the women I'd been treating were facing something even more brutal, and most of them were losing.

Read the full feature in the June 2026 issue.