Postnatal Exercises

One experience that changes most women both mentally and physically is pregnancy. After the dramatic experience of pregnancy for nine months, many women find it difficult to come back to their original shape. A woman's body is subject to biological changes that also causes many physical changes in her body. Knowing very little about postnatal exercises, many women start exercising and call for more trouble which can lead to further damage to their health. This article tells you some things that you must know about postnatal workouts, to reduce post pregnancy weight in a healthy manner.

Postnatal Exercise Plan

Before you go in for any type of exercise it is important that you consult your doctor or midwife about when can you start exercising. Generally, women who have normal delivery and are healthy during delivery and pregnancy can start with mild exercises soon, say a second week after the childbirth. But, it is important that you listen to your body and do not over stress it. If you do not find comfortable to exercise so soon, then you can start the next week. You need to slow down the postnatal exercise if you observe the following signs:

• Feeling of exertion
• Feeling tired immediately
• Constant or severe back pain
• Pelvic pain and leakage
• Muscle pains or discomfort
• Darker and heavy post natal vaginal flow

The above signs indicate that your body is still not healed and is not ready for postnatal exercise. To avoid the above problems it is better to start with simple exercises, such as, walking exercises, yoga, mild stretching, aqua aerobics, swimming, and light weight training. You can do it for ten minutes and can gradually increase the duration to half an hour over few weeks at your own pace. Keep your postnatal program simple and perform only light exercises.

Effective and Safe Postnatal Exercises

Given below are some of the simple and safe postnatal exercises that a woman can perform post delivery after consulting the doctor and under the guidance of an expert.

Pelvic Floor Exercise
It is important for you to first strengthen your pelvic floor muscles (the ones that you contract to hold urination), which are generally are tightly placed between the pubic and tail bone. These muscles support the uterus, bowel, bladder, and vagina. During pregnancy they can become weak resulting in incontinence. Follow the simple steps given below to strengthen pelvic floor muscles:

• Relax your abdominal muscles.
• Squeeze pelvic floor muscles for five to ten seconds.
• Concentrate on the muscles and then release slowly.
• Repeat it for 10 times.
• Gradually increase the set of 10 repetitions at your own pace.
• You can do this exercise in sitting, standing, or sleeping position.

Lower Abdomen Exercise
Before you perform lower abdomen exercise, make sure that your abdomen is healed completely if you had a C-section. Given below is one of the best abdominal exercises after delivery.

• Lie on your back.
• Bent your knees and place the feet flat on the floor.
• Place the hands on your stomach.
• Now tighten the stomach muscles by squeezing the stomach inside.
• Now push the arch of the back against the floor.
• Squeeze the lower stomach tight and hold the position for the count of 10.
• Now release the muscles slowly.
• Repeat for 10 times and gradually increase the repetitions.

Stomach Tightener Exercise
After pregnancy the overall stomach muscles become loose, which needs to be tightened to bring back the original shape. Given below is one of the best stomach exercises after pregnancy.

• Lie on the floor.
• Bent your knees and rest arms on your thighs.
• Now try to lift up slowly by sliding your hands on thighs towards the knees.
• Breath out as you lift up and the hold position for five seconds.
• Now, slowly go down while breathing in.
• Repeat this for 10 times and gradually increase the repetitions.

Whatever exercise you perform, it is important that you do not push yourself too hard. Always perform warm up exercises before you start an actual postnatal exercise program. Drink plenty of water before and during a postnatal workout. Also make sure you follow a nutritious diet that is required to heal the damage caused to the body muscles. Before you perform postnatal exercise with the baby, it is important to ensure the safety of the baby. Remember that losing post pregnancy fat and coming back to normal shape will take some time. So go slow and enjoy this phase of life.