Our Co-founder Dr Zahabia had a great interview with Mo Moms Maternity for PostPartum Workouts
Read on for the excerpt of the interview.
Sheetal: What are the goals that mothers come to you for their postpartum recovery and how do you help them tackle each goal?
Zahabia: Weight loss is the most common goal that mums come to us with. Lot of women however are looking to get stronger because they feel
" my arms are weak" or"its hard for me to lift my baby"or you know
"i have had a bad back so as she/he is gonna grow older so its going be difficult for me to carry him/her." Also sometimes they are looking to get back to a workout that they were doing before or activities like hiking or playing a sport. Basically they want to get back to that level of exercise or functioning. And sometimes they just want to get rid of the aches & pains that they have as well. These are the most common goals that we hear from our moms to work on in their postpartum journey
Sheetal: The mother has just delivered. What would you recommend a mother to do in her first 40 days?
Zahabia: The First 40 days are the period of pure recovery but during that time we really do encourage movement, simple exercises which he
lp in circulation, exercise that help tackle the niggles that come about because they're suddenly breastfeeding. Since they are breastfeeding they are in atypical postures and awkward positions that they've never really been in before. Also when you're trying to figure out a position that seems perfect for you, that also does take a toll on your neck & back; while lifting and carrying the baby too it might load your neck and back. The simple exercises & stretches that we recommen
d or just a small walk also helps in releasing happy hormones which is so important during this time because its a big transition for her. The other part that sometimes gets neglected is breathing specially if you had a C-section, being a major abdominal surgery & because of anaesthesia your lung capacity is reduced. Also considering its covid or otherwise for women that have asthma or are at a risk of developing any lung issue, to get that optimal lung expansion is important for which the breathing techniques & exercises are good. They also have added benefit of relaxation. Another forgotten area is the the pelvic floor is very very important aspect as some women have incontinence. Many times older women come
to me as a patient later and say we have leaking of urine which got never solved after delivery. You might have had a vaginal delivery, or an episiotomy and even a C section you can develop weakness of the pelvic floor. So you need these exercises for your pelvic floor so you don't develop incontinence.
Sheetal: How can a mother manage/ squeeze out time to exercise with her busy baby schedule?
Zahabia: This is the first 40 days is difficult to manage exercises specially because that is the time when things are getting figured out. So we
tell moms maybe you can do your pelvic floor when you're Breastfeeding so that it serves as a reminder because you are not gonna forget to breastfeed your baby. Same goes with mild shoulder stretches, do that just after you breastfeed or do it when you burp the baby. Basically do it with the schedule that you're already following instead of setting aside a time to do it. It is little impractical and hard in those initial days. In this way its not a separate 30-40 mins exercise session but just broken down into pieces that have a similar effect.
Sheetal: In your informative sessions that you ll do before childbirth, is it just the mothers that join in or does the spouses also join in. Do you help husbands to prepare for Labor time too? How do you make sure the community is also a part of process and support for her?
Zahabia: Our prenatal exercise programme, its mainly for the mom though we do have a couple workout. Its for fun which includes the partner
and he can also see that this is what she can do. And for the informative sessions, the partner is very important, it could be your husband, your mother or sister, someone who is gonna be with through this journey or both. And we really recommend that because them understanding & knowing what a woman is gonna go through labor. Its also very a way for the mom and dad to be to connect to the baby and each other. We definitely get lots o
f husbands in our Lamaze sessions & sometimes the husbands have more questions than the wives. So its very cool to see the things are changing and for them its very technical and they wanna make sure that they have the most right information to be able to help and its v
ery sweet also. It sometimes starts with some of them being wary but it ends up in being them so involved in the whole process because they really want to see their wives being comfortable and want to be able to do whatever they can because thats also the way that they feel connected.
Sheetal:Tell me also a little about your prenatal program , if I have just figured out that I am pregnant and I connect with you. What is the journey that would take me through?
Zahabia : We have our Bnbfit programme for prenatal mums. When they approach us we go through all their reports, we understand their gynaec health & history. We do an assessment to understand what kind of exercises they are okay to be doing. And then if there are any kind of modifications for eg. if they have any aches & pains then we modify our exercise programme accordingly.
They can join us at any trimester of their pregnancy. Any time is a good time to start their exercise journey.
Our bnbfit programme focuses on strengthening & flexibility that you need for child birth, Breathing techniques & Relaxation techniques that help you cope with Labor pain.
Along with the exercises we also do Lamaze childbirth Education to help them understand Labor and different child birth options & just after childbirth to help mums with what care is necessary for newborn & strategies to help with breastfeeding.
Thanks Zahabia for this fantastic insight !
Thanks Sheetal for doing this live with us !
If you want to hear the entire interview /chat do to our instagram video link below !
Link: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CXn9SCTIVMW/?utm_medium=copy_link