1st Month Postpartum Recovery Approach
The first month postpartum requires a lot of patience! You may feel anxious to get going on your recovery and may rush the process which may cause more issues in the end. Let’s break down some things that you can actively do during the first month to enhance your recovery but honor the healing process.
1. Rest
The first two weeks postpartum should we spent primarily resting. Focus on resting in positions that are more reclined or supine to take pressure off the pelvic floor. Remembering that we are healing from a dinner plate size wound internally inside of the uterus, where the placenta was previously attached.
So, is important that we allow ourselves to rest for the first two weeks postpartum. Focus mostly on breathing and snuggling with your baby!
2. Breathing Drills
The first core exercises that you can do postpartum, and you can begin these day one postpartum, are breathing drills!
Diaphragmatic breathing is a way for us to reconnect with our core, and optimize function. Diaphragmatic breathing is how we best stabilize are spine, so focusing on re-learning this breathing pattern can be a great core exercise, and also enhance our healing.
When we diaphragmatically breathe, we want to focus on inhales down and out, to feel gentle increase in pressure in the abdomen back and pelvic floor. Then when we exhale, we want to focus on either relaxation, or gentle contraction. With the contraction, we want to focus on lifting up and in with a pelvic floor, and then also the transverse abdominals, or lower abs.
We can focus on incorporating this breathing pattern in different positions, such as supine, sideline, all fours, half kneeling, recline, or even standing! During the first months postpartum you can explore different positions while taking a few breaths. You may find that different positions are more challenging than others.
Breathing can also be a helpful way to release tension within the pelvic floor. Tension in the pelvic floor could cause a sensation of heaviness or discomfort. If you’re having tension, try a half kneeling breathing position to focus on different quadrants of the pelvic floor.
3. Core Stabilization
When we begin our rehabilitation process, we first wanna focus on stabilization. This whole ensure that our foundation is strong before we begin to build strength on top of it. With core stabilization exercises, we are focused on maintaining the torso position as the extremities move.
We can do exercises like dead bug, side lying hip abduction, or bird dog! When doing these exercises, don’t focus on the number of reps or rounds that you do. It should be fairly unstructured during this first month postpartum.
Focus rather on feeling the movement in your body and coordinating your breath to movement.
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4. Short Walks
Starting around three weeks postpartum, you can begin to go for short walks. You can push a stroller, or you can baby wear!
Pay attention to any increased bleeding, which may be a sign that you walked too far or too hard.
Walks at this point should be no more than 20-45 minutes by the end of the month.
5. Mobility
During the first month postpartum, focusing on chest and thoracic mobility can be extremely helpful because we may find ourselves in this upper back rounded position from feeding baby so frequently.
6. Scar Desensitization and Mobilization
If you had a vaginal tear, or a C-section, managing your incision site will be important.
With a C-section scar, we can be in scar desensitization shortly after birth. This involves using different texture fabrics to touch around the incision site, and then by the end of the month slowly moving onto the actual incision.
Around three weeks postpartum, you can begin mobilization of the tissue, but focus away from the scar. We offer a C-section scar mobilization webinar every other month on Tuesday nights at 7:30 PM EST.
If you had a vaginal tear or episiotomy, during the first month we want to focus on keeping the scar clean. After using the restroom use a perry bottle to spray and then pat dry. You could also use perineal balms or sprays to help with healing and itchiness. We don’t want to mobilize this tissue until we’ve been cleared by our provider.
There’s a lot that we can do the first month to help support our recovery, and also honor the healing process. It can be challenging to be patient during this first month, as we may be anxious to return to the gym and begin our rehabilitation process.
As we approach recovery in this first month, we want to focus on unstructured movement that allows us to fully explore how each movement feels and coordinating breath to movement.
We offer several Postpartum return to fitness programs to help you gradually return to sport after birth. These programs can be started after your postpartum bleeding has stopped, usually around 4-10 weeks postpartum.
We have several program options, such as general strength and conditioning, C-section recovery, Olympic weightlifting, and running.