Are You Breathing Properly? How Breathing Affects a Couple’s Fertility.

Proper breathing—especially diaphragmatic breathing—is a fundamental pillar of our body’s optimal functioning. Its importance extends beyond physical health; it also affects our hormonal balance and fertility. Improper breathing habits and poor posture can lead to excessive tension in the pelvic area. According to Katarína Hanuliaková from our Intimfyzio center, breathing is the key to pelvic floor health, hormonal balance, and fertility. By practicing proper breathing and improving your posture with the help of physical therapy, you can support your ability to conceive.

Proper breathing isn’t just about inhaling and exhaling—it’s a technique that should involve using the diaphragm, the main breathing muscle located between the chest and the abdominal cavity.

Diaphragmatic breathing, or so-called “breathing with the diaphragm,” is a frequently discussed concept. It is supposed to be the primary form of breathing we use in our daily lives. When we engage in more intense physical activity during the day, the accessory breathing muscles join the diaphragm to help ensure adequate oxygenation of the body. During inhalation, the diaphragm moves downward and expands the lower ribs. This downward movement of the diaphragm creates pressure on the organs of the abdominal cavity and pelvis.

What is diaphragmatic breathing?

One of the basic functions of the pelvic floor is to support and regulate intra-abdominal pressure. As soon as the diaphragm descends during inhalation, the abdominal wall expands, pressure is exerted into the pelvis, and our pelvic floor gently and naturally descends. When we exhale, the exact opposite happens—the diaphragm contracts and rises, and the pelvic floor responds by rising as well, drawing inward and performing what is known as a concentric contraction. This process flows continuously within our bodies in this way, without us even realizing it.

Our normal breathing throughout the day should be calm and sufficiently deep. However, it is important to be able to adapt our breathing to various stressful situations. The same goes for our pelvic floor. For example, when we go for a run, the auxiliary respiratory muscles must assist diaphragmatic breathing; our breathing and heart rate accelerate, and the intensity of our breathing increases. After finishing our physical activity, it’s necessary to “breathe out completely.” Subsequently, our breathing slows down, and calm, diaphragmatic breathing resumes. The pelvic floor always responds to changes in the intensity and depth of breathing.

Poor Posture as an Obstacle to Proper Breathing

However, if we don’t have ideal posture—which is common these days—our rib cage may be misaligned, triggering a chain reaction of problems all the way down to the pelvic floor. Physical therapist Katka Hanuliaková explains the connection between poor posture, improper breathing, and pelvic floor function in more detail:“In our physical therapy practice, we often encounter what’s known as ‘open scissors syndrome,’ where we see that our clients’ ribs protrude forward. In this condition, when a client tries to breathe using the diaphragm, their pelvic floor is not positioned directly beneath the chest and therefore does not function properly. From a physical therapy perspective, the ideal state is when the chest is positioned directly above the pelvis, and with each inhalation and exhalation, the diaphragm properly influences the activity of the pelvic floor.

So, in order to breathe properly, it’s important to maintain good posture and center the entire rib cage—including the diaphragm—above the pelvis. This ensures that we can utilize the full capacity of the diaphragm and that our pelvic floor will function properly as well.”

Shallow breathing, poor digestion, and reduced fertility

With every proper inhalation, our abdominal and pelvic organs are massaged. It is important to realize that this constant movement of the diaphragm also stimulates our endocrine and reproductive glands. Diaphragmatic breathing thus also affects the function of the ovaries and testicles themselves. Once we’ve learned to breathe shallowly, as if using only the upper part of the body, the stimulation of these glands is limited. The motility of the organs is also limited, which very often manifests as digestive disturbances. With insufficient breathing, the diaphragm does not descend, the intestines are not massaged, and the entire peristaltic process is slowed down, as is the act of defecation itself. Undigested stool, which should have been naturally eliminated from the body as waste, is instead retained, pressing on the pelvic floor muscles and creating increased tension in this area. As we already know, prolonged increased tension in the pelvic floor causes a number of health problems and also negatively affects couples’ fertility and ability to conceive.

“As part of an individual assessment of a person or couple who have been trying to conceive for an extended period of time, our pelvic floor diagnostics also focus on evaluating our clients’ breathing, overall posture, movement patterns, and lifestyle. When helping couples conceive, it is often precisely these identified deficiencies that are directly linked to their reduced fertility,” explains Katka Hanuliaková, an intimate physical therapist, regarding her work with couples on their journey to having their long-awaited baby.