The only exercise you need after giving birth: jump start your early postpartum recovery

By Leslie Abraham

Wondering what I’m talking about? Time to jump start your early postpartum recovery. But before I tell you more about it, let’s back up a bit.

The exercise I’m about to share with you comes from a famous and very efficient method created by a French physical therapist. She advises to do it as soon as you give birth. In fact, you can use it even when you’re still in the labor room with your baby against your skin (once you went through all the tears of joy of course!). I told you it was an early postpartum recovery exercise…

You don’t need any equipment at all other than your own body and lying in a comfy position. Sounds doable, right?

I like to teach that exercise in 3 phases, so you can really understand it and master it over time and with practice.

First, let’s take a quick look at your pelvic floor anatomy. It is very important to first understand where it sits so you can visualize it when performing the exercise and working on your early postpartum recovery.

So the picture above is a very simple one, but you can see that these muscles sit between your coccyx, pubic and iliac bones. They are also connected to the rectum, vagina and the central tendon (which lays between the rectum and vagina outlets).

Without wasting any more time, let me drive you through this very simple exercise.

Step 1: Breathing 101

It’s all about breathing baby. It seems absolutely straight forward, of course, everybody knows how to breathe you’ll tell me.

But this is where it gets tricky. In my practice, back in France when I was practicing as an osteopath, I was always starting to work on proper breathing with my patients. Too often, we breathe in what I call “survival mode”. Meaning we breathe mostly from our upper thorax rather than placing our focus on our diaphragm.

To be able to breathe properly, start by breathing in through the nose, without forcing it. Breathe out through an open mouth. Now that you feel relaxed. Place your hands on the side of your lower ribs (just above the waist line). Breathe in and try to feel your ribs expanding to the sides and pushing against your hands. Breathe out and feel your ribs coming closer to each other; place your attention on your deep core muscles and feel them engaging as you breathe out completely.

Repeat a few times. Now you know how to breathe fully (by the way if you keep practicing this in your daily life it will help you to manage your stress level during the day).

Step 2: Pelvic floor

Most of the time, when we try to do breathing exercises or work out, we tend to breathe upside down. Meaning we are putting even more pressure against the pelvic floor when breathing out. It results, most of the time, in a slight flexion in the lumbar spine, instead of seeking a long and neutral spine.

Now that you know where the pelvic floor muscles are, visualize them and place your attention on them.

Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, but begin with the pelvic floor first. Bring these muscles up without squeezing too much, just a gentle lift. Then engage the deep core muscles. It feels like you’re trying to zip up the mid line from the pelvic floor up to the diaphragm.

If you just gave birth, focus on the pelvic floor only, do not place too much focus on the core muscles for now as it might be painful. A few days after, and when you don’t feel any big discomfort, you can certainly focus more on engaging the deep core muscles too.

Step 3: Bringing it all together

In the video below, I’m showing you how to bring it all together.

Try it even in the first few days after giving birth, once you feel ready for it. Even if you suffer from a tear, it might help to relieve the pain. If you had a C-section, careful on the deep core muscles engagement. It is, in no way, a big squeeze from the waist. Rather, focus on just breathing out all the way through an opened mouth without forcing it.

Here we go, you now know everything about where to start and what to do for your early postpartum recovery!

Happy watching!

Disclaimer: Bonjour Baby strongly recommends that you consult with your physician before beginning and enrolling in any exercise program, even if you are in good physical condition, not suffering from any complications, and able to participate in the exercise.
Bonjour Baby is not a licensed medical care provider and represents that it has no expertise in diagnosing, examining, or treating medical conditions of any kind or in determining the effect of any specific exercise on a medical condition.

Wondering what is diastasis recti and how you could prevent it? Check this blog post here giving you more explanations on the matter.