I want to start with saying, do what your body is telling you to do! You have just grown a human, an extra organ and more blood cells than most men make in their lifetime. Resting and taking it easy for 6-12 weeks is necessary and important.

• Deep diaphragmatic breathing: Getting those deep belly breaths to stimulate the parasympathetic or “rest and digest” system and vagus nerve will help you through this perinatal period. Diaphragm breathing is one thing we teach in office and helps to facilitate proper breathing techniques to return after shallow breaths during your 3^rd trimester. Your baby feeds off of you and your energy and knows when you are stressed. By improving your relaxation you can improve your bond with them.
• Proper Posture: Addressing swayback posture with specific stretches and exercises throughout the day will help to prevent pain from this (don’t worry, more specifics on the way!). We have also used functional taping of your postural muscles to give you a little extra support, as these muscles are weak after birth.
• Abdominal weakness: I can not repeat this enough, NO SIT UPS. They have been found to significantly increase pressure on the L5 disc and can separate your abdominal muscles (diastasis recti) even further after birth. Every person will require something different but walking, bridges and pelvic tilts on an exercise ball are a good start for postnatal rehab (there will be a whole post on this!).
• Decreased abdominal pressure after birth: Postnatal rehab! I suggest pelvic floor rehab with a doctor of chiropractic or doctor of physical therapy (I have great suggestions if you need one!) to every one of my postpartum mothers. If they have the motivation and support to do them at home we send the mom’s home with the exercises after their “reset” adjustment after birth, but if not, physical therapy with routine chiropractic adjustments is the perfect mix!
• Postnatal depletion: The best source of nutrients is from food, but when we are breastfeeding/pumping/bottle feeding, staying up all night with a newborn and just came out of labor, adding additional supplements and vitamins is a great way to make sure you are getting what you need to heal. The three commonly depleted vitamins after childbirth are Iron, Omega 3 Fatty Acid (DHA/EPA) and Vitamin B (B12,B6). The brand of vitamins is also very important as many drug store vitamins can have additives and preservatives to make it “shelf stable”. Our office carries Pure Encapsulations, Douglas labs and Klaire labs that are free of unnecessary additives and allergens. We have some in office, but we will order them directly from the company for you to ensure the vitamin has recently been made and is actively available for your body to absorb.