Mindset for Postpartum Recovery
You don’t need to “lose” anything for postpartum recovery. A common misconception is that postpartum recovery is about losing weight but in reality, the most important thing for your health is regaining your strength. We give a large part of our energy and muscle mass to our babies when pregnant and breastfeeding. So, in order to recover, we must gain that back. Think about building yourself up. This can be a lot like building a house– you need a good foundation, stable structure, the ability to be creative, and quality materials.
Step 1) Set The Foundation:
Our foundation is our deep core muscles that surround our trunk and attach into the pelvis and rib cage. The better our foundation, the stronger and longer lasting our house will be. I think of pelvic health physical therapy as setting the foundation for quality movement, function, and athletic ability.
Step 2) Build the Structure:
To build our structure, we want to do full body strength training. It’s therepeutic to focus on slow, controlled movements first prior to getting speedier and more dynamic. This helps support the joints and prepare the tissues for more down the line. This step can be guided by a physical therapist and/or a personal trainer with perinatal experience.
Step 3) Add the accents and get creative:
Nobody wants to move like a robot forever. It’s not realistic and the truth is, it’s actually really good for our bodies to move in a variety of ways. Have fun with this step– dance, surf, run, play games. A physical therapist and/or personal trainer can help with this step by letting you know how to add things back in a calculated way. They can also inform you on what symptoms to look for to know when to back off a bit and spend more time on steps one and two.
Bonus) Source Quality Materials:
Striving for a healthy lifestyle helps your body lay down hearty, new tissues at the cellular level. Fueling well with good nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress management (I call these the four pillars of health) helps your body regenerate, heal and build back stronger. Of course, this is hard to do while caring for a newborn, but you don’t have to be perfect. Making some improvements goes a long way.
Hopefully this analogy creates a positive mindset of what you can accomplish physically after having babies. It’s not a perfect analogy because unlike houses, we are alive and well and therefore much more capable of being flexible and creating change. It IS okay to skip steps and return to them later. For example, if you try going for a run and things feel off or you leak, that IS okay. All is not lost, your house is not going to fall over. You can adjust your training and work on your foundation while continuing to pursue the fun stuff. You can set your foundation now or you can do it later– even twenty years from now. But the sooner you do it the the stronger of a house you’ll get and the more you’ll be able to enjoy moving and using your body.
