Maintaining health and wellness in your life is most important during and after pregnancy. How you feel directly affects the new love in your life and staying healthy and fit can help channel any fears and anxiety about your new role. Fitness can also decrease your chance of post partum baby blues.
LUNA has teamed up with Stroller Strides, a program on Fitness for Moms, Fun for Baby. Together, we've provided some tips to live and learn from.
1. Kegel Kegel Kegal. Before and after baby, continue to do kegels throughout every day.
2. Work your TVA (transverse abdominis). This is your deepest layer of abdominal tissue and it helps create a nice waistline. Think of it as wrapping around you like a corset. Bring your TVA in all the way around you without holding your breath. Practice this when walking, sitting and doing exercise. It will help you birth your baby and will help you flatten your tummy after baby.
3. Listen to your body after having a baby. It generally takes about 6 weeks until you can start a formal exercise program. You can however start gentle stretching, kegels and light walks right away with permission from your doctor.
4. It takes 9 months to put the weight on so you should give yourself at least 9 months to take it off. It may be discouraging to see your still pregnant looking body in the mirror after having a baby, but it will shape up with good eating and exercise.
5. As long as you have your doctor's permission and you feel good, you can workout throughout your pregnancy. Listen to your body and do what feels good. This is not the time to work out to exhaustion. Instead workout to prepare your body for the marathon of labor and motherhood.
6. Make sure your workout after having a baby is designed for the postnatal mom. Much has changed in your body and you want to address those changes in your workout so that you will have improved posture and you can assist your body in recovery.
7. Think you can't exercise and breastfeed? Nonsense. Exercise will not effect the quality or quantiy of your breast milk. Just be sure to hydrate adequately and get in enough calories. If your baby doesn't want to nurse after exercise, try wiping your breast with a clean towel. It may just be the sweat she doesn't like. Also, make sure to nurse before exercise so that baby is happy and full and you don't feel engorged while exercising.
