Compression Garments...Do you need them?

I leaked on a treadmill at a GoodLife in Ottawa after my first baby, which is why today's news matters to me more than it probably should.

As of today, October 5, 2026, Blueberry Therapy is the Canadian distributor for SRC Health, the Australian company behind the pelvic compression garments I have recommended in clinic for years. Canadian orders now come through blueberrytherapyshop.ca at the same price as buying direct, and a pelvic health physiotherapist on my team will help you pick your size. That is the news, and it fits in two sentences. The rest of this post is about the garments themselves, because most people who would be helped by one have never had it explained to them.

A pelvic compression garment is a close-fitting pair of shorts or leggings with firm panels over your lower abdomen, your perineum and your pelvic girdle, and they hold everything gently in place while you move. I explain it the way I would explain taping a weak ankle. The tape supports the joint while the real rehab happens, and nobody tapes an ankle and skips the rehab. A compression garment supports your pelvic organs while you and your physiotherapist build the strength to carry them yourself, which is why I recommend one alongside pelvic floor physiotherapy and never as a replacement for it.

Years before we sold a single product, my pregnant clients kept coming back to tell me the same thing. Their SRC shorts were getting them through pubic pain, vulvar varicosities and those last heavy weeks on their feet. When enough smart women tell you something works, you listen.

Compression garments help during pregnancy by taking some of the load off your pelvic joints and your pelvic floor, which eases pelvic girdle pain, pain at the pubic symphysis and vulvar varicosities. I know that pubic pain personally. In my second pregnancy I was nesting, so I climbed onto two bar stools to clean the top of the kitchen cupboards, the stools slipped, and my pubic symphysis has opinions about it to this day. A garment does not treat the cause of that pain. It makes walking, standing and sleeping hurt less, and a pregnant person who keeps moving protects her strength, her mood and her recovery. Anything that keeps you walking in the third trimester is worth having.

After birth, a compression garment gives gentle, steady support to an abdominal wall and pelvic floor that are healing, and that includes recovery after a C-section. Many of my clients wear their Recovery shorts or leggings home from the hospital. The question I hear most is when you can exercise again, and the honest answer is that readiness is not a date. The 2019 returning to running postnatal guidelines were written by Gráinne Donnelly, Tom Goom and Emma Brockwell, and the authors themselves graded that advice as expert opinion. Research since then has moved further away from a fixed timeline and toward how your body handles load. A garment can be one part of a graded return while you rebuild that capacity, and my free Move Again guide at postpartumguide.blueberrytherapy.ca walks you through the stages.

Compression shorts for prolapse and bladder leaks are the garments I reach for most. Restore shorts and leggings are made for mild pelvic organ prolapse and light bladder leaks, with support panels over the perineum and lower abdomen, and they give your pelvic floor gentle support so you can move and laugh with more confidence. Around one in three women deal with urinary incontinence, and leaking is common but never normal. I have had prolapse, I have had leaking and I have had pain, so I am not saying this from behind a clipboard. For many people a Restore garment plus pelvic floor physiotherapy is the middle step between putting up with it and surgery, and if your prolapse needs more support than a garment can give, a pessary is the next tool I reach for.

My customers describe it better than I can. Patricia in North Bay calls her Restore shorts "a more effective addition in my urge incontinence tool box" and wears them hiking. Laurie in Oshawa says they are "very comfortable, fits under my jeans. They do not make me sweat." Wendy in Pembroke wrote that they are "helping with my POP and surprisingly comfortable. So glad I found a Canadian supplier."

For runners, the best evidence so far comes from Hole Shebang guest Gráinne Donnelly. Her team tested 13 postpartum runners with self-reported pelvic floor dysfunction on a treadmill with and without a compression garment, the same runner both times, in randomized order, and the results were published in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living in 2026. With the garment on, peak pelvic jerk and low-frequency pelvic shock attenuation both decreased, which means less force reached the pelvis with every stride. Runners also rated their core support and pelvic floor support 4 and 5 points higher on a 0 to 10 scale, and their fear of symptoms went down. Gráinne and her colleagues call these findings preliminary, and 13 runners is a small group, so I treat this as a promising signal and not a final answer. What I love is that the runners' own reports and the biomechanics pointed in the same direction.

POTS, or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, is a condition where standing up sends your heart rate climbing because blood pools in your legs and abdomen instead of returning to your heart, and it brings dizziness, a racing heart, fatigue and brain fog. Compression is one of the few non-drug measures with solid evidence behind it. In a randomized crossover study of 30 patients with POTS, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2021, average heart rate during a 10-minute tilt test was 109 beats per minute with no compression, 103 with lower-leg compression, 97 with abdominal and thigh compression and 92 with full abdominal and leg compression. Symptoms improved in the same stepwise way, and the authors traced it to more blood returning to the heart with each beat. The more of your abdomen and legs a garment covers, the bigger the effect, which is the thinking behind SRC's POTS and OI tights .

I want to say a word about the people behind these garments. SRC Health is led by its managing director, Sinead O'Donovan, and we dealt with SRC as a stockist for years before any of this. What stood out was the evidence they put behind each garment, the care they take over sizing and fit, and how close Sinead has stayed to the clinicians and women who wear them. When we started talking about bringing SRC home to Canada, she offered her research, her imagery, her reviews and her time before we asked for any of it. I only put my name behind products I would hand to my own clients, and I am proud to be the Canadian part of that team.

For most people very little changes on October 5, and all of it is for the better. You get the same garments at the same price as buying direct, shipped from Dundas in 4 to 6 days, and your SRC size stays the same.

Will my insurance cover a compression garment?

Some extended health plans cover compression garments with a prescription and many do not, so call your plan before you order. Ask your physiotherapist, physician or nurse practitioner for a prescription that names "medical compression garment" and your diagnosis, then submit our receipt to your plan.

How do I know which size to order?

To measure, stand with your heels together and have the person measuring you keep the measuring tape straight. They should place the tape over your hips, pubic bone and your bottom at the fullest part. The tape should touch your body at all points but not be pulled tight. A size chart is included on our online store with each product to help you. Email them to operations@blueberrytherapy.ca with the garment you are considering, and a pelvic health physiotherapist will check them against SRC's size chart within one business day.

Do I still need pelvic floor physiotherapy if I wear a compression garment?

Yes. The garment supports your pelvic organs while you and your physiotherapist do the strengthening work, so it belongs inside a plan and cannot stand in for one.

Can I return a compression garment if the size is wrong?

Yes, within 30 days, as long as it is unworn, unwashed and in its original packaging with the hygiene liner in place. These are close-fitting personal garments, so we cannot take back anything that has been worn, and that is why we ask for your measurements before you order.

If you are leaking, hurting or holding your breath through your workouts, you do not have to suck it up. Your body has changed, and we can figure out how to get you back to what feels good to you. You are not alone.