Your body is put through a lot of trauma during birth. So you want to make sure you do everything you can to help it heal properly afterwards. Here are four things to focus on during that initial postpartum recovery phase after a vaginal birth. 🤱🏽 1 - Connect your breath: A great position to do this in is 90/90 diaphragmatic breathing. 2 - Keep the area clean: When going to the bathroom you want clean the area with warm water from a peri bottle and pat dry. 3 - Release scar tissue with breath: By breathing down the spine into the back of the pelvic floor with an exercise like squat with back body breathing. 4 - Work on hip range of motion: Working on your hips is very important because they are connected to the pelvic floor. Try supine breathing with hip rolling and knees bent. The Expecting and Empowered App has everything you need to heal postpartum and rebuild strength! 📱✨ Drop a comment below and let us know your best advice for another mama who is preparing for postpartum recovery. 💕 Plus comment the word “checklist” and you’ll receive a free postpartum recovery checklist with everything you’ll need for your healing journey!
Mama Mechanics: Toddler Bath Time 🛁 The smallest things can make the biggest differences! These simple tips can really help save your back when you’re giving your little ones a bath. ✨ 1️⃣ Use a stool. 2️⃣ Angle the stool towards your toddler (you always want your trunk facing your toddler). 3️⃣ You can drop one knee while sitting on the stool or you can ditch the stool and place one knee up and one knee on the ground (make sure to keep your pelvis close to the tub with this). 4️⃣ Get them out and wrap them in a towel and then hold them while you rinse their hair using a cup or under the faucet. Tag your partner or another mama friend who needs these tips!!!
C O N T R A C T I O N S 😫 Ouch. We asked our community today what they felt like, and we got a lot of mixed answers. Do any of these sound familiar to you? What else would you add? Drop them in the comments below! ⬇️ We hope this helps those who haven’t been in labor yet get an idea of what contractions may feel like! AND if you are approaching labor and want to learn more about what to expect so you can be prepared mentally AND physically - check out our labor and delivery course. https://www.expectingandempowered.com/courses
Ways your partner can help protect “the goods” during labor and delivery ✨ There are lots of ways that your partner can help you prepare for labor and delivery and during the actual event itself. Today we want to share 4 of these with you. There are many more ways they can help! Check out our Prepping for Labor + Delivery Course for more ideas and information. ▪️Semi-seated with partner: This is a great position for early on in labor to help baby drop into the pelvic outlet. Resting your trunk on your partner is a great way to conserve energy, since you never know how long labor is going to last. ▪️Partner supported diagonal stance: This position is also great for the beginning stages of labor to help open up your pelvic space. Lean on your partner for support and stand in a diagonal stance with one leg forward and one leg back. The forward leg can be up on a stool if available. Touching like this can release serotonin and that can help you feel more safe during labor and deliver. ▪️Double hip squeeze: Have your partner squeeze the top of your pelvic bones together, which will cause the bottom of your pelvis or pelvic outlet to open up more. It takes SO much pressure off this area and gets your pelvic outlet into optimal position. ▪️Side lying with peanut ball and partner support: This is a great pushing position if you have an epidural. Lay on your side with your top leg up on a peanut ball while your partner holds your ankle up. You want your knees in and ankles out. Make sure to tag your partner in this reel so they know how they can help! ✨
Getting out the door on Monday mornings is a STRUGGLE with little ones!!! 🙃 Drop a comment below and let us know the biggest struggle you’ve had trying to get out of the door in the morning. ⬇️ Original video from @spunkiiiiii ✨
We’re the first to tell you that our workouts looked a lot different before having kids! They were typically at the gym, in a cute workout fit, for at least an hour. After having kids we had to adjust our workout mindset. •Your workout might get interrupted. •You workout might only be 10 minutes. •You might have little visitors during your workout. •You might be working out in your PJs. But EVERY MINUTE OF MOVEMENT IS BETTER THAN NONE. Take advantage of these “workout snacks.” This might not be the season for long workouts at the gym and that’s okay. Focus on moving your body when you can. You’re doing amazing mama! ❤️
Anyone else struggle getting out of bed in pregnancy?! 🤰🏽 When your bump is growing even simple tasks that take minimal core strength can be tough. Modifying activity cannot only make moving easier but it can help you protect your core during pregnancy (helping you avoid this coning and doming you don’t want to see).🤰🏽 One thing that you should modify is how you get in and out of bed. When you just sit up people tend to use their superficial muscles, which places more pressure on the linea alba. (This is the connective tissue between the rectus abdominis that creates diastasis recti.) Pregnancy: Instead of using a sit-up maneuver to get out of bed 🙅🏽♀️ Try this: * Bend your knees * Roll over to your side * Drop your legs over the edge * Scoot to edge of bed and put your feet on the floor (Use your elbow to help you move yourself) * Go nose over toes, then use yours legs and arms to push you up to stand, instead of straining your abdominals. Do the reverse to get into bed without straining your abdominals - lower down with your elbows, lie on your side, lift your legs up and then roll over. Did you use the log roll technique during pregnancy?
Just out here wrestling 🐊 every day. LOL Raise your hand if you can relate 🙋🏽♀️
Did you know during the first year of life a baby can go through over 2,000 diapers? That’s a lot of diaper changes! 👶🏼 Today we are sharing 3️⃣ tips for diaper changes! 1 - Get everything prepped and ready beforehand. Make sure your diaper is out and open, wipes are ready to go, you have your diaper cream and everything else you might need. 2 - Make sure you are changing your babes on a raised surface like the changing table. If you are tall you can even buy risers to raise your changing table up. This will help you avoid bending over and save you some back pain! 3 - When your little one is old enough to walk try changing all their just pee diapers while they are standing up. This will help you avoid all that alligator rolling! Do you have any tips for diaper changes? Drop a comment below and let us know! ✨
Is that asking too much?!?! 🛋️🛌 💤 Would love to hear what else you love now that you’re a mom in the comments below!👇🏼
Being a mom is a very physical job: lifting, carrying, holding, and nursing 24/7. Mechanical low back pain is very common postpartum. 😫 However, it doesn’t have to be that way! Today we are sharing 2 tips to help with low back pain postpartum: 1 - Press through your legs: Place your hands on your legs, up close to your hips joints. Then press your hands into your legs. You should feel some lengthening in your back, which should give you some relief. 2 - Hip hinge: You want to practice and master the hip hinge for everyday life. Lean forward while keeping your spine straight, chest up, and butt back. This should be the motion you do every time you pick up your baby! Moving and strengthening your back are also KEY in helping you get rid of your low back pain. We include exercises to help with this in the postpartum program in the E + E app. 📱 Did you experience postpartum back pain? What helped give yours relief - drop a comment and let us know! ✨
All three of my little ones were born via C-section. That definitely was not my original plan, but the C-sections have been such a blessing because I am now able to help other mamas navigate the recovery. C-section recovery can often be tricky because we do not receive a lot of information from our providers. But this initial postpartum recovery is very important! ❤️ Here are three things to focus on during weeks 1-3 of your C-section recovery: 1 - Moving Smarter: You want to protect the area during everyday movements to help tug on the scar less. Try using the nose over toes technique when getting out of a chair and the log roll technique when getting in and out of bed. 2 - Nerve Desensitization: This helps to bring back awareness and feeling to the area so that your scar feels like the rest of your skin. Starting one week after your C-section, grab fabrics of varying texture and rub the skin around the incision area with each different fabric. Try doing this twice a day for 5 minutes at a time. After 4 weeks you can move over the scar itself with the textures. Repeating the same process. 3 - Movement: You want to begin creating tension across the front side with movements like adductor squeeze diaphragmatic breathing and standing lumbar extension. Mamas you deserve to have all of the information that you need in order to heal properly, no matter what type of birth you had. Save this reel for quick reference later. The E + E app includes all of this and so much more to help C-section moms recover properly. C-section mamas - drop a comment below and let us know what advice you would give to another mom preparing for a C-section. ✨ Xo. Krystle ❤️