Over my career I have worked with thousands of postpartum women who are chasing after the body they had pre-pregnancy. After one, two or several kids, a laundry list of body complaints plagues them:
- Diastasis recti – a soft-tissue split that occurs down the middle of the rectus and does not reconnect
- Clicking or painful SI (sacro-iliac) joints
- Peeing while sneezing, aka, “Snissing”
- Low back pain
- A feeling of disconnect from the core
This is just a short list of some of the common after-effects of child-bearing. I know from my students’ own stories that my Yoga Tune Up® approach has helped them to awaken their bodies, heal birth traumas and bring a greater sense of body peace than they had pre-pregnancy. I developed my approach through years of experimentation, study and listening to my students and experts. But I had not yet been through the rite of passage of pregnancy myself. Until now. I am expecting in late February!
Your Inner Baby Carriage
I set out to find these answers myself last November, and created a two-day webinar entitled Healthy Pregnancy, Healthy Baby: Dispelling Myths of Pre-Natal Exercise, Diet and Self-Care on CreativeLive. Being pregnant, I thought it would be the perfect time to share my own knowledge along with that of my favorite pre- and post-natal movement educators with expertise on the subject of healthy pregnancy:
- Dr Kelly Starrett DPT and his wife Juliet, founders of Moblitywod
- Katy Bowman, author, biomechanic and creator of Aligned and Well
- Esther Gokhale, author, back pain specialist and creator of the Gokhale Method
- Dr. Eden Fromberg, osteopathic Obstetrics/Gynecologist and owner ofLila Yoga NYC
- Sarah Fragoso, author and creator of EveryDay Paleo
This team of experts and myself each presented their area of expertise over a jaw-dropping 10 hours of informative content. I was thrilled to be able to share pain-erasing self-massage strategies using my Yoga Tune Up® Balls. I also shared hip and pelvic exercises for women at every stage of gestation or recovery. I was also proud to share an anatomy lecture on “The Inner Baby Carriage,” which included an array of breathing strategies such as a variation on the Diaphragm Vacuum that helps to promote a responsively versatile torso and core for better breath. The secret ingredient that each of these experts reiterated is: how you hold yourself now — during your pregnancy — dramatically affects the state of your post-baby body. They all emphasized standing well, sitting well, sleeping well (and of course feeding well) during pregnancy to minimize the challenge of carrying 25-50 extra pounds as baby grows larger and changes your body’s carriage. Your inner baby carriage will dictate much of your resiliency when you start carrying your baby outside of your body for the next nine months. 🙂
Check back in for Friday’s post for all my tips on having good posture during pregnancy!
[Reprinted with permission from Gaiam Life.]
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Thank you for this article. I appreciate the description of the “the inner baby carriage”. I’ve excited to take the creative live class! What a great team
Dear Jill,
I was happy to hear about your webinar! I am 13 weeks pregnant with my second child – my first is 15 years old – and I’m really hoping for a different labor experience, the first one was awful. I also hope to quickly recover to be able to resume my classes and get the necessary strength to be an effective mom. The panel of people sounds amazing!
Already sending this webinar to friends, family and students who are pregnant.
Thank you for this article and webinar. As a childbirth educator, I think it’s super important to remind women that “how you hold yourself now — during your pregnancy — dramatically affects the state of your post-baby body.” The habitual patterns and blind spots in how we walk, stand, sit, and sleep will set the stage for post-pregnancy recovery in all realms: physically, mentally, and emotionally (especially augmented when adjusting to life with a newborn!). What a great way of exploring these blind spots with self-massage techniques adapted to every stage of pregnancy! I’m recommending this webinar to all my prenatal students
Many of my favourite body experts and educators in one webinar! Wow! Sadly, this oven is closed, and so I will not be personally benefiting from their wisdom. However, I see a lot of expecting and new moms in class, and so I might purchase this video anyway. I’m sure it will be a great resource when assisting them through the stages of their pregnancy and beyond.
As a personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach, if one of my clients is pregnant, we continue to train with significantly lower intensity to maintain the connection to the basic movement patterns. This helps to stay self-aware in light of the ongoing changes in the body and hopefully contributes to better kinetic decisions.
Women are always talking about “post-baby bodies” in our culture. What you shared in this article was very interesting and something that I did not realize would make a difference! As a young woman with plans to one day have a family, it is great to know that something as simple as posture during pregnancy can have such a positive effect post-pregnancy. I am currently enrolled in a 200hr teacher training and as I begin teaching later this year, this is all great information to have for any pregnant women who may come to my classes!
After reading this article, I wished that I had known these things when I was pregnant. Although it’s a little late now for me (been there, done that – 4 kids is enough for me), I realize that it’s never too late to start working on standing better, sitting better, and sleeping more and better. Rumor has it that the Creative Live pregnancy webinar was so amazing that I should get it anyway, even if I’m not having anymore children. Thank you for putting this info out there Jill! I’ve already passed it on to my prego friend. =)