Exercising After Having a Baby!

A question a lot of women have after having a baby, is when can I start exercising again? Well the answer may surprise you. There are a number of important steps to take when you first too begin exercising after giving birth.

Firstly you will need to start exercising your pelvic floor and stomach as soon as you feel ready and comfortable enough to do; this will help to strengthen both of these muscles. Strengthening the pelvic floor muscle is very important as it helps to heal any tears, prevent incontinence and is essential if you want your normal sex life back.

When you start doing other types of exercise depends on how much you exercised while you were pregnant and before you gave birth. If you do no exercise before and during pregnancy then would not be advisable to start exercising straight after giving birth as your body is not use to exercising and this could result in injury.

It is advised that you wait until at least your six week check up before starting exercising, however if you are wanting to start some form of exercise before this then walking is the best thing to do. You can get out and push your baby about while also getting some exercise.

If you did exercised during your pregnancy, with no problems then it would be possible for you to complete the exercise routine you did while pregnant; however it is important to avoid swimming in the first six weeks in order to avoid infections.

Those who did not exercise during pregnancy need to slowly ease into exercise, as not to have a damaging effect on the body. It is best to start strengthening your pelvic floor muscles and light walking before you move onto any other forms of exercise.

There is not set rule on how much exercise you should do, it all depends on how activity you were during your pregnancy. You should feel tired after exercising but return back to your normal self within an hour, if you are tired for hours after exercising then this is too much. It is important that you do what feels comfortable for you, listen to what your body is saying!