Postpartum Pilates
What good can postpartum Pilates do?
As we announced in last week’s blog about Pilates during pregnancy, For Your Birth now offers Pilates classes! Pilates is a physical fitness program that emphasizes flexibility, strength, and balance. We’ve discussed how Pilates can relieve pain and build strength during pregnancy. Unsurprisingly, it’s also hugely beneficial to practice Pilates after your baby is born. In fact, our Pilates instructor, Erin Ratner, says that practicing Pilates after her daughter was born saved her body.
Why is Pilates great in the months after giving birth?
Pilates can help you stay healthy and feel great any time in your life. But it has specific benefits during and after pregnancy. By focusing on strength, flexibility, and balance/alignment, Pilates helps with:
· Building the muscles in your core, meaning the muscles in your abdomen, lower back, and hips. It also builds pelvic floor strength.
· Coordination and balance.
· Posture and alignment.
This particularly benefits postpartum people for a few reasons:
· Rebuilding strength after pregnancy.
Pregnancy stretches out your abdominal muscles and, especially in the later months, prevents you from moving your lower back. Practicing Pilates during pregnancy can help offset these changes, but you have even more range of motion after pregnancy. So, it’s an even better time to rebuild your abdominal strength and improve mobility in your spine.
· Improving posture to reduce pain.
As a new parent, you may spend a lot of time hunched forward – for example, during the hours spent breastfeeding. Pilates reduces tension in the shoulders and improves posture, reducing back and shoulder pain.
· Equipping you to safely lift your baby.
After carrying your baby in your bellow for nine months, you spend years carrying your baby around the house! With Pilates, you can build strength to reduce the strain of lifting and holding your baby. You’ll also learn how to activate the best muscles for these tasks so you don’t accidentally injure yourself.
How can new mamas find the time?
New parents often struggle to find the time to sleep, so taking on a fitness routine may seem like a challenge. But Pilates classes don’t have to be a burden, especially when you get them from For Your Birth - Erin will come to your home! And, with the help of a postpartum doula, you can free up more time to prioritize your health.
The bottom line is that you deserve to take care of your body and feel like yourself after you have a baby. Practicing Pilates is one of the best possible ways to do that.