Postpartum Recovery and Exercising as a New Mom

Postpartum is a time like no other. The days seem to fly by but some hours stretch on way too long. 

There’s no magic to the 6 week postpartum check up. Some bodies are healed in 4 weeks, some may take months. It isn’t something to blame on yourself but you do have control to arm yourself with the best tools to heal correctly in the time your body needs. And no matter what we aren’t bouncing back. You aren’t going back to your old self, you are new and improved! A lot of factors go into what your body needs and how long your body needs to heal. You may have had a fast, vaginal birth with a short pushing time, small baby and minimal tearing. Or you may have had a c-section after hours of labor.. Or you may be somewhere in between. My first baby was an unmedicated 3 day labor (on and off) which ended in a vaginal home birth. But my pushing stage was really fast and I ended up with a pretty good second degree tear from only a 6 lb 5 oz baby. And that was after months of perineum massage! 

What's the best thing to do to let your body heal postpartum? Rest, of course. What's the last thing you can do with an infant? Rest, of course. However, if it is an option, I would suggest limiting stairs and walking as much as possible the first 1-3 weeks. We were lucky to be home the whole time and had 4 grandparents who helped us so much! I barely had to lift a finger Avery’s first two weeks of life. But if you have other little ones to take care of or a short maternity leave you may not have this luxury, so try to plan sitting and laying as much as possible. Early on there are other things besides resting you can do to help your body recover. (I am not as familiar with C-section recovery so this is intended for vaginal recovery) What I recommend for immediate postpartum vaginal/perineum recovery is

• Bathe: It's hard to find the time but you can even bring the baby in! Add epsom salt and sitz bath. I used Mama natural sitz bath 

• Correct care down there: Ice the area when needed. Peri bottle spray every time you go. Make it easy to poo with stool softeners and/or I like Calm Magnesium. Witch hazel and ice on pads daily. There are also other sprays and creams that can help that your Doctor or midwife can recommend. 

• Easy to digest foods: This does not directly help your lower area heal but indirectly, it allows your body to not have to use tons of energy digesting foods. Think cooked hot and cooked, not raw and cold. 

• Breastfeeding: If you can nurse, do!

Now let's skip forward to that 6 week check up. You are cleared to go! I was too, that doesn’t mean start with your last workout before you got pregnant, or even the last workout before you gave birth! You may be cleared, but a whole lot happened down there and your body still has a ways to go. Remember, you grew that baby for 9 months. Your body was changing and growing for 9 months! Don’t expect 6 weeks of limited sleep and caring for another human as a full recovery from that! Start out slow and start the correct way. Isometric breathing and squeezing of your core and kegels for your pelvic floor. To do these correctly and to find out how much abdominal separation or diastasis recti you have go see a pelvic floor physical therapist. I can’t stress the value of this enough. This is their bread and butter and they will be able to help you now so that you don’t have problems later. And then go see a chiropractor so they can help adjust you after all you went through during birth (and pregnancy if you didn’t go then)

After all of that, which, believe me, I know it's hard to get out of the house even for those few appointments, but please take the time to heal now instead of darling with further problems later. And next, is the fun part, it's time to call us! Your personal trainer will be able to create a solid plan to keep your body on the road to recovery. We will progress the load and level of difficulty as your body grows stronger, and give you tons of tips for what to do outside of your workouts. We will make moving fun and challenging. We keep you motivated and consistent and work around your and baby’s schedule. Your trainer works with your other doctors and health specialists so everyone is on the same page. The key here is your personal trainer will know what exercises are appropriate for you now and how to update those for tomorrow. If you do too much of the wrong movements during postpartum you could be doing more harm that will be tricky to un-do. One example is if you are doing core exercises that are too advanced if you have diastasis recti, which most new moms do to some degree. Instead of helping your core get stronger by bringing the abdominal walls together, these harmful exercises are pushing and keeping your abdominal walls apart. Without knowing it, you are doing harm and unfortunately, eventually your stomach could look bigger and more pouched out from the tension pressing out where the muscles never healed together. Not to mention your muscles haven’t been able to grow stronger and you would be at risk for injury because your core isn’t functioning optimally.

Instead, your personal trainer would check for separation first and then start you on a core program meant to bring the abs together, and then strengthen and finally, add load. 

I hope from this you understand that you are not alone in the road to recovery. I hope you’ve learned that using professionals is highly recommended and should really be the standard of care.

Your Find the Core personal trainer will keep you safe, motivated, consistent and progressing towards your fitness goals!

I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice. I am a personal trainer and new mom myself. These suggestions are based on personal experience and what I know as a personal trainer and what I have learned from my midwives and doctors.