Don’t Rush Your Postpartum 4th Trimester

The postpartum time is one to be filled with rest, excellent nutrition, sleep, and recovery. It’s a time of figuring out life with a new human, your partner, and most importantly, yourself as a mother. People should be helping you, serving you, cleaning for you. Your body just completed one of the hardest, more rewarding events and it’s time to heal.

Based on ancient practices from India, Highlights of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Mother and Baby Program teaches women and partners how to care for the postpartum mother:

• Daily massage with warm, cured sesame oil, either by a trained technician or self-administered, followed by a nap or warm bath
• Light, war, liquid-based (soupy) and easily digestible foods, freshly and thoroughly cooked, preferably organic, especially for the first 2 weeks postpartum, with the heaviest meal at mid-day
• Large quantities of warm, purified water, and milk, boiled and still warm, taken throughout the day and separately from meals
• A small amount of ghee (clarified butter) in the diet
• Home rest for three to six weeks
• Warm environment free of drafts, harsh lights, and dust
• Settled and quiet activity, minimum TV time
• Limited visits from friends
• Cooking and household work done by others if possible
• Pleasant company during quiet meals
• Breastfeeding and daily Ayur-Vedic massage
• Transcendental Meditation program practiced twice daily
• Early bedtime (before 10 p.m.)

In China, families adhere to 40 days of rest after birth, known as the confinement period. During this time, new mothers consume lactation-promoting warm soups and herbal tonics and stay away from cold fluids. In Mexico, this practice is called the cuarentena, and again rest is the rule and only certain restorative foods are permitted. A new mother’s body is also considered to be “open,” and vulnerable to cold, so her abdomen is wrapped in a soft cloth called a faja. In both traditions, new mothers don’t do any housework or partake in strenuous activities; female relatives and friends take over errands and chores. The new mothers are also educated as they heal, taught to breastfeed, and how to care for themselves and their babies.

For the passionately active woman, rest can be difficult. Either viewed as weakness or laziness, inactivity isn’t comfortable for most of us. Like standing under a 175lb Snatch, it takes patience, persistence, and incremental steps to mentally and physically come to terms with it. Think of sleep, without it, our bodies would be crippled. Much of our healing, mental processing, growth, and immunity happens during our slumbering hours. Waking-rest in turn allows your body to regenerate, nourish, and strengthen without the abundance of exercise stress.

After you have a baby, muscles are stretched, joints are unstable, hormones are fluctuating like crazy, and lack of sleep is affecting your cognitive abilities. This stress your experiencing is unlike any other and that means your body needs time to adapt to all these changes.

1: Ask and pay for help. 

Don’t worry about ‘adding one more thing’ to you expenses. Your mental and emotional state is invaluable and many moms THINK they can do it alone, but chances at, you still need that village to help you.

Wonderfully, on babylistregistry.com, you can break out of the norm and ask people for what you actually want for your baby shower gifts! This includes asking people to chip in for services and care they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. Poplar new mom requests are: a postpartum doula, meal delivery service, cleaning service, massage therapy, acupuncture, Amazon gift cards, or straight cash.

2: Treat your postpartum recovery like rehabilitation. 

As a human who was probably pretty fit before pregnancy, it’s common to think a lot of your hard seems to have gone out the window. This is both true and false.

False because training during pregnancy has allowed your muscles to continue staying strong, movement patterns to remain the same, and you’ve positively challenged your cardiovascular system.

True because you weren’t working at the thresholds you were pre-pregnancy so yes, everything got worked but not to the degree of intensity. And that’s cool. You were busy growing a human!

During rehabilitation, clients start with the most simple, least intense movements to rebuild motor control, strength, and endurance. Deemed proficient, the challenges increases so the client continues back to base line and above.

For the new momma, your main focus is the core. It was stretched for 9 months and expecting it to get back to normal within 4-6 weeks is ridiculous. It’s also mentally draining as your expectations will continue to disappoint you.

Begin with head tilts, glute bridges, heel slides, and dead bugs to build steady strength of the rectus abdominis. Make sure your lower back is flat or slightly arched and holding strong in that position the entire time. It shouldn’t arch drastically or ‘give way’, this means you’re trying to go to far and you’re not strong enough yet.

Finally, up the Iron, Protein, & Fiber. Add beets, spinach, nuts, lentils, and lean meats to your plate. Nutrient-dense foods will help you feel great and get you back on your feet faster.

3: Move in ways that feel good to your body. 

Women always ask what they can start doing before their 6 week check up. It seems like a long time without training sessions, and I promise it will fly by, but I’m a realist and I know women want to get back to their WOD-ing.

• Foam/lacrosse ball roll
• Yoga stretching
• Seated meditation, start with 3 minutes and build up.
• Walking
• Body weight:
  • Squats
  • Glute bridges
  • Head tilts
  • Heel slides
  • Dead bugs
  • Push ups
  • Standing glute and scap contractions

If you experience more bleeding than usual, dizziness, nausea, or light headedness, slow down, you’re probably pushing too hard.

If there are other unique movements that you are used to performing, and can at a low intensity, do it! Listen to what your body needs, not what you want it do.

Lastly, when you return to your training grounds, you won’t be able to do what everyone else is doing. You won’t lift as much as you used to. Things feel funny. This will cause frustration but don’t manifest on your inabilities. This is only temporary. Slow, steady, consistent work will win you the healthy body. If you rush, you could end up doing a wide array of damage that could be permanent. Don’t risk short-term mental gain for long term physical pain. As this might be your greatest physical hurdle, understand that this is a time to enjoy all your body is capable of. It grew and birthed a baby, now it cares for that baby like no other! Relish in these moments of being your truest, most feminine self.