Exercise after Giving Birth – Post-Labor Recovery Exercise
Regular exercise can supplement your dietary efforts to support healing and, later, weight loss. Early in your recovery, however, you need to be gentle with yourself. Simply going for a walk is ideal for the first 6 weeks. Before starting any form of exercise, you should get your care provider’s approval. At all times, listen to your body and do not push yourself.
Yoga
Yoga can be relaxing and invigorating, stretching and gently strengthening. It also can be done at home, near your sleeping baby. Gentle yoga moves can contribute to healing by providing oxygen to receptive tissues.
Pelvic floor exercises
Kegel exercises strengthen your pelvic floor and may help resolve any lingering problems with minor urine loss. They involve repetitive tightening of the pelvic floor muscles. The easiest way to figure out how to tighten these muscles is to practice while using the bathroom. As you urinate, tighten your muscles to try to stop the flow of urine. Once you know how to tighten your pelvic floor muscles, you can perform these exercises anywhere. Kegels won’t do much if you do them infrequently, so try to keep at it.
Abdominal exercises
In time, you will also want to focus on strengthening your abdominal muscles. Weak abdominal muscles often cause lower hack pain, one of the most widespread ailments of otherwise healthy adults. Placing you feet on a chair while performing sit-ups or other abdominal exercises helps protect your pelvic floor.
