In Germany, many women are lucky enough to be able to participate in a midwife led recovery program after giving birth. A postnatal course led by midwives to help slowly reactivate and rehabilitate the core. Often this goes between 8 and 10 weeks – but what comes next? Are you ready to go all in after that???
After this course the birth is already some months ago and maybe you feel top fit again. Maybe you already did a lot of sports before and during your pregnancy and can’t wait to go jogging again or to see your friends in the CrossFit Box again… Maybe it is also sport that helps you to find a mental balance to your mum’s everyday life.
My tips to decide if you are ready for more intensive sports can be found here:
- The first 12 weeks after birth are NOT there to think about your own figure. During this time you should rest as much as possible, do some light pelvic floor exercises, carry as little as possible and start the midwife led training or a special program such as my Holistic Core Restore® Fourth trimester.
- If you had a pelvic floor injury at birth (tear, incision) you should wait at least 6 months before you go jogging again or do other high impact sports. The tissue needs at least that long to regenerate.
- Did you have a C-section? Also here I recommend you give yourself at least 6 months time and in that time you can start rebuilding your core strength with a targeted build-up training before you return to high impact fitness.
- Do you sometimes lose urine while laughing, coughing, sneezing or when you exert yourself more? – This is common BUT not normal. For this you will find help from specialised physiotherapists and also from me.
- How much sleep are you getting? How exhausted are you?
It is important that your sports program does not exhaust you completely. It may challenge you and make you sweat, but if you are totally exhausted the day after, it is too much. - Do you have a diastasis Recti (belly gap)? This is not mainly about how wide your gap is, but whether you have problems with it. If you cannot use your abdominal wall functionally, it will also have an effect on your pelvic floor. I offer the course Holistic Core Restore® Diastasis Healing, which will help you to strengthen your core and activate it properly.
- How do you feel during your fitness session? Do you ever have the feeling that there is a pressure in your vagina, or do you constantly have a tampon feeling inside you even though you don’t have one in?
If yes, then you should not run or jump for now until you have been examined by a specially trained physiotherapist (who does internal examinations) or visit your gynaecologist. Here, too, conservative therapies can often provide relief. My Holistic Core Restore® EveryWoman program can help you manage your symptoms.
In my experience, many women are not yet ready to get back into high impact fitness right after their midwife led training. Often they feel fit or have even been told by the doctor that they can start again now. But the body simply needs a certain period of time to heal. After a knee operation nobody would think about running a marathon after 3-6 months.
For this reason I started my new indoor fitness course “Fit and Fabulous” in Schönaich. It’s a mid to high intensity but low impact course, where we train pelvic floor friendly and at the end of the lesson we also build in a time of stretching and relaxation. The focus here is on offering women a fitness course that makes them feel comfortable. I specialise in working with women from pregnancy to menopause. Fitness helps us to feel mentally better, to do something for ourselves and to improve our quality of life.
If you would like to participate in our Wednesday course, please register now.
Wednesdays 18.30-19.20 in Schönaich (district Böblingen)
If you need more specialized help because you want to recover from a caesarean section or hysterectomy, have a diastasis recti or generally want to strengthen your core during a personal training course, please contact me and we will discuss which of my Holistic Core Restore® courses is the most suitable for you.
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