What’s The Best Way To Get Back Into Postnatal Exercise?
Grace Lillywhite, Owner of Centred Mums
There is so much conflicting information about postnatal exercise, and part of the reason is that it’s a really individual situation for everybody. Your previous fitness level, your pregnancy, your birth experience and your postnatal recovery all play a huge part. Here are some top tips about how to get back to exercise safely.
The pregnancy and postnatal period is such a crucial time to look after yourself. It can be really hard postnatally to prioritise YOU when you have a new person who relies on you so much but it is so important to look after yourself as you will see the benefits throughout your whole life if you do.
Weeks 1 - 6 post vaginal birth and 1- 8 or 12 post abdominal birth
* REST REST AND REST SOME MORE!! We all know that our pelvic floors go through a lot during pregnancy and birth (whether that is vaginally or abdominally as they both have an impact) but we don’t often think about how to let the pelvic floor recover properly. It’s not just about kegels. When you jump straight up and get out immediately after the birth you are putting the weight of all of your organs straight into the pelvic floor when it is already in a weakened state. It is so important to rest AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE in the first few weeks after your baby is born. In other cultures they spend the first 40 days at home and, while that might feel too much for some, we really recommend at least opening the majority of the first 2 weeks in bed, focusing on resting and bonding with your baby. Ideally you will also put a huge focus on your nutrition, ensuring you are eating lots of foods that promote healing such as bone broth, eggs, nuts, leafy green veg, avocados and berries. Try to get as much support as possible whether that is from friends, family or a postnatal doula.
* Another great idea during these early days is to go and see a bodyworker - a Women’s Health Osteopath can help you to release fascial tension around your abdominals and realign your pelvis and a specialist massage therapist can relieve fascial tension which will aid your recovery.
* Focus on your breathing. The way your breath moves through your body has a huge impact on your pelvic floor health. Try to ensure your breath is moving through the entire canister of your torso - make sure you breathe into your pelvic floor, your abdominals and your whole ribcage. Sometimes during pregnancy the breath can get a bit stuck and so mobilising your ribcage doing gentle twists and side bends can really help the breath to move better into this area.
* Mobilise and release your body - shoulder rolls, ankle circles, calf stretches, roll downs, glut stretches and hamstring stretches are all great ways to gently get your body moving and release some of the tension that in the long term will prevent you from gaining strength and stop you from feeling good.
Weeks 6 - 12 post vaginal birth or or 8-14/12- 18 post abdominal birth
* Ideally go to see a Women’s Health Physio to get your pelvic floor and abdominals checked and get an idea of where you are starting from
* When you have the energy to go for a walk try to get out in the fresh air and move but don’t put pressure on yourself if you haven’t slept enough. Rest and nutrition are still a huge focus - don’t assume that now you are OK to exercise more officially that this is what you “should” be doing. The only “should” is to listen to your body.
* Hopefully your GP will give you the all clear to start exercising but this doesn’t mean you are ready to go back to your previous routine. Every postnatal body needs to be properly rehabilitated - it all starts with the breath, then you need to release and begin to build strength in a way that your body can handle. If you do too much too soon there is a good chance you will see the consequences of that - even if it’s not until much later.
* Start to do exercises that strengthen your pelvic floor and abdominals, making sure that your pelvic floor is lifting and your belly is flattening and not ‘doming’. Usually gentle movements like pelvic lifts/shoulder bridges, heel lifts and knee floats are a good place to start - planks and sit ups usually cause doming until you have done the ground work. Slow and steady wins the race postnatally - you need to look at the long game! Doing too much too soon doesn’t build the true core strength and we get a lot of clients coming to us 5 years postnatally still having issues because they went straight back to running/bootcamp etc without doing the groundwork. Put in the time now and your future self will thank you!
* Be aware that pelvic floor health is not just about Kegels exercises - they are somewhere to start but looking at your daily movement habits, making sure you are not straining when you go to the toilet which puts pressure on your pelvic floor, making sure you are not creating too much Intra-abdominal pressure when you move as this bears down into your pelvic floor - avoid lifting things that are too heavy for you.
3- 6 months post birth
The Return to Running Guidelines (https://www.absolute.physio/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/returning-to-running-postnatal-guidelines.pdf) recommend the absolute earliest you run (and this effectively means do any more high impact exercise in our view) is 3 months postnatally but for the majority of people this is likely to be too soon. If you spent the first 6 months doing the ground work in specialist Pilates or exercise classes you may be ready then but there are so many factors to take on board as to whether it’s really the best thing to add impact in - how much sleep you are getting, whether you are breastfeeding, how much support you have in caring for your baby and all the things we mentioned previously such as your birth experience.
6 months to 1 year
Your body is still recovering so don’t put pressure on yourself. Some people don’t get a chance to look at their exercise until way past a year postnatally and it actually doesn’t matter how long ago you had your baby, you still need to start from scratch. So even if you don’t have a chance to think about exercising until your baby is 1, you need to begin your journey in exactly the same way - with strengthening exercise that focuses on your core to rebuild your strength before you start to add high impact movements like jumping and running into the equation.
What we do
Centred Mums provides specialist classes for pregnant and postnatal women in St Albans and online. Our classes are built around Pilates, but bring in all sorts of other elements from nutrition to relaxation and more, creating a supportive, non-competitive environment for you to develop your practice.
We created the Centred Mums in Motion course as a result of the huge demand from clients wanting to get ready to get back to running, HIIT classes, netball club or whatever else they were challenging their postnatal body with. This programme is suitable whether your baby is six weeks or 26 years old - we will teach you how to support your core so you can exercise safely!
This course is for you if:
• you’ve ever had a baby – whether that baby is six weeks or 26 years old!
• you want to improve your body confidence
• you want to improve your pelvic floor and abdominal function
• you’re looking to do high impact exercise
• you’re already doing high impact exercise but know your core needs to do more!
• you feel like you need to reconnect with your core
It’s suitable for you whatever your level of fitness, and whatever size or shape you are. You can work through the programme at your own pace.
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Bio
Grace Lillywhite is the owner of Centred Mums, a series of exciting and innovative pregnancy and postnatal wellbeing programmes in St Albans. She founded the business to support women throughout their motherhood journey and has been working with this wonderful population of women for over ten years.
Grace’s primary focus is to let all women know that pregnancy and postnatal exercise, wellness and nutrition are VITAL and LIFE CHANGING. The way you treat your body during pregnancy and your postnatal years will stay with you for the rest of your life. She hope that Centred Mums will teach as many women as possible how to look after their pregnant and postnatal bodies, and how to connect to their body so they can exercise safely, effectively and in a way that is sustainable for the rest of their lives.
Grace has successfully rehabilitated diastasis recti (using The Center Method), pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic girdle pain, sciatica, sacroiliac joint problems, disc issues and general back pain in the pre and postnatal period. She has taught pre and postnatal teacher training workshops for the Pilates Foundation and was honoured to be asked to become part of the UK Faculty for The Center for Women’s Fitness in 2018.
