Everyone has excitedly counted ten little toes and ten little fingers and deemed “junior” fit and healthy. Now that “junior” has arrived it is time for the next step: post-natal exercise. Most women strive to return to pre-pregnancy weight and it can certainly be done pretty quickly after delivery if a post-natal exercise plan is developed and used.
Doctors feel that although dieting is fine, a post-natal physical fitness plan will be more effective for improving energy and safeguarding against postpartum depression thanks to the mood-enhancing neurochemicals released while exercising. Within a week or two (a month if birth was via a C-section) the mother can begin easing into a physical fitness plan.
A Good Plan
A good plan starts off slowly because the body has already faced lots of changes and challenges throughout the pregnancy and delivery. Losing the weight in a short period of time is not advisable. Be sure to take your time getting back to the pre-pregnancy workout intensities. If exercise was included throughout the nine months of pregnancy, the new regime can follow the same stages only working backwards – start with activities from last trimester and work back to second then first trimester activites.
A low-stress option to consider is walking. Walking while bringing along the newborn in a stroller is a great way to go. How easy is that?
Besides weight reduction, another key consideration is to rebuild the core muscle strength that was lost while pregnant. This is critical, even for those that included exercise during the pregnancy. Choice of exercises should include those that will not damage the core muscles – especially true after a C-section. Following are some safe choices that are useful to improve the core muscles:
2) Perform a modified sit-up in which only the head and shoulders are raised a few inches off the floor. 3) While lying on the floor with knees in a bent position, compress pelvic floor to pull abdomen down and push lower back against floor.
Don’t Do These!
Avoid jogging, intense aerobics and other joint-stressing activities for a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks after delivery. For many weeks, the hormone relaxin which the body produced to relax the pelvic joints during childbirth is still present in the body. Since this keeps the joints and ligaments loose, those exercises that are high-impact can lead to injury.
Although good during pregnancy, for the first 6 weeks after delivery refrain from exercises performed on hands and knees as this can cause an air clot to form where the placenta used to be.
Learn how to properly exercise during pregnancy with a pregnancy exercise dvd. Yoga and Pilates can be gentle and relaxing forms of exercise during pregnancy.