The Key To Proactive, Safe Postpartum Healing

Healing, in general, is an ongoing process. It comes in stages and relies on the completion of each step before you are ready to move on to the next.
It can be incredibly scary to hear, but the fact of the matter is that your uterus may not be quite back to normal size and that translates to larger issues.
The ligaments, peritoneum, and endopelvic fascia, which are just fancy words for big sheets that hold the organs in place and attached inside your body, were stretched from holding the uterus and bladder in place, and now in early postpartum have become saggy and are less supportive.

To add on to all of this, the effects of the relaxin hormone are still causing your ligaments to be loosey-goosey. The act of running requires that your body take a certain amount of strain and both of these factors diminish your ability to withstand it. So please, before you attempt to train for a marathon, read what I have to say next.

The mindset that you have is a result of a fundamental lack of education on what is happening with your body and its ability to heal.

Over and over, you have been told that the only way to recapture that feeling you had before pregnancy, of having full control of your body, is through throwing yourself back at the gym. You have not once been told to take it slow or to listen to what your body is actually saying when you feel that twinge of pain. In fact, you have been conditioned by the idea that the energy that you so need to continue life with a newborn is directly derived from pushing yourself to diet and exercise away your new body. I know this because, I too, have felt this same way.   As you read and think on the implications of this subject, take into consideration the actual weight of your organs and the amount of rebuilding that must go into the tissues of your body when the healing phase begins.

Imagine exactly the many changes and movements your body needs to make internally in order to achieve what we call rebuilding. It also includes your pelvis coming back to its non pregnant position. Rebuilding, in particular, is so very important in protecting you from harmful joint replacements, incontinence, and other problems much farther down the road.To avoid this, we simply need to be cognizant of the fact that rebuilding is a necessary part of our lives at this particular time and should be our priority. If you do, you have a greater chance of a more pleasant and complication-free pregnancy later down the road. 

It is common to hear women on their second or third pregnancy comment that they are “showing” much quicker this time around. Or that their belly has dropped. In actuality, they are seeing the reality of their muscles no longer having the strength or density to provide the sort of support that they did in their earlier pregnancy. The tissues have lost their luster and are not holding your core in place the way that they should.         

You are dealing with so much on both the physical and emotional ends of the spectrum that it can become easy to fall into one of the more common traps, preventing you from getting help and ultimately, impeding the rebuilding phase.