You made it to your six week postpartum check up! For most moms this is the final meeting with your healthcare provider. For many this is truly an exciting milestone when they’re given the green light to resume “normal” behavior, like exercise, sex and generally speaking… carrying on with life.
Then there are those mamas that have an experience like mine… I’m pretty sure I literally cried at my six week check up with my midwife because I couldn’t believe I was being released into the wild, expected to care for this newborn baby while I still felt like a broken hot mess myself. I was thrilled to be a mother to my darling baby, but I was exhausted and had no interest in or energy for sex or working out. In fact, I was still slightly terrified that my birth tear would rip back open every time I pooped.
So if you’re feeling like your hormones are still wild or life in general is a hurricane right now, know that you’re not alone.
And if you feel like you’re cruising and life is beautiful— hell yeah! Power to you!
And maybe it’s a combo. It’s all valid here.
But let’s talk more about exercise and pelvic floor health. You’ve probably been given the okay to begin working out, and even with nominal energy levels, a bit of movement will likely help you to feel better! So I’m gonna support that all day long. And it’s actually important to take care of your physical body with exercise so you have the energy in the future to keep up with your little one! So tiny step by tiny step we’re gonna get you a bit stronger each day!
A great place to start with is gentle stroller walks around the block to slowly build up aerobic endurance. And when you’re ready strength building is important for muscle, bone, and metabolic health.
Whatever your return to exercise looks like, it’s important to do this in an extremely mindful way so you take care of your pelvic floor health during your postpartum recovery. One smart option is to make an appointment with a pelvic floor therapist. They’ll help make sure everything is healing nicely and can give you individualized feedback and help. Your doctor or midwife can give you a referral for this if you ask or they may even recommend it themselves. In some countries, it’s even common practice for all postpartum women to visit a pelvic floor specialist for a check up!
If everything is feeling pretty normal down under and you didn’t have any birth complications or injuries, seeing a pelvic floor therapist may not be necessary. In this case, I’d still recommend choosing mindful movement as you get back into your groove.
My favorite option for pelvic floor friendly workouts during postpartum is Get Mom Strong. It’s an online video based program that has custom plans for pregnancy, postpartum and beyond. It’s specifically designed to support pelvic floor and core health and is appropriate for those dealing with postpartum organ prolapse as well as diastasis recti (DR). In fact, I was first referred to this program by my own pelvic floor therapist! I was dealing with bladder prolapse and pretty significant DR at the time so I can speak to this stuff firsthand!
To paint the picture clearly, I did Get Mom Strong during my second postpartum, which blended into my third pregnancy, and then my third postpartum. In fact, at the time of writing this, I’m 18 months postpartum with baby #3 and I still do the workouts 3x week and I totally love it! I feel like I have gotten so much stronger and more confident in my body after years of feeling pretty broken from major birth tears, prolapse, and DR. It’s a wonderful feeling to be taking steps to heal myself fully!
One cool thing is that at the very beginning of the program Ashley (she’s the trainer) leads you through the “core basics” which is all about reconnecting with your breath and body with very simple body movements. It’s really all about rewiring our brains at the beginning to remember how to properly engage and relax our core and pelvic floor. I think most moms go through a major disconnect somewhere along the childbearing continuum, so starting with this foundation is actually super helpful and ensures you’ll be able to do the later workouts in a safe way (and just you wait… the intensity definitely bumps up over time!).
The workouts are about 20-30 minutes long and I’ll be totally honest… there was a time in the past when I had 2 kids under 2 and I couldn’t even find 20 minutes a day for myself! I could give 10 minutes, and that was my limit, so I decided not to let this stop me and instead let it be my catalyst! I committed to doing half of a workout each day. Months later I was able to level it up to a full workout and the rest is history.
Another cool thing about this program is you can get a full year subscription for literally less than the price of one appointment with a pelvic floor specialist. Don’t get me wrong— I still fully support seeing a therapist if you think you have a lingering issue or if you’re unsure or you just want a professional to give you some feedback. It’s never a bad thing to do! But it is an expensive thing to do. Some providers take insurance or super bills (aka they can give reimbursement or partial reimbursements based on insurance), but many do not. I had to pay out of pocket for my services so for me, finding an online option like GMS that my pelvic floor therapist literally told me to do was such a no brainer!
I’m such a believer in Get Mom Strong now that I became an affiliate so I could give my readers a special bonus! If you’re interested in trying out this program, use code WILDFLOWER when you sign up for a free 21 day trial! (without this code, she offers a free 7 day trial). —That’s three weeks of workouts for free to see how it feels for you. No downside to that!
However your body is feeling these days mama, know that you are not broken! You are not alone! You are strong and you can and will get a little bit stronger every day! Be gentle with yourself and honor where ever you’re at in your journey. Your sweet baby is so lucky to have you as their mama and you’re doing a wonderful job!
I see you and I’m here for you!!!
xoxo
Mama Clare, Health Coach for Moms