Postpartum exercise: 6 tips to get you safely and confidently moving again, straight from the experts

Standard NHS procedure is to offer a postnatal check between six and eight weeks after the birth, during which your doctor should take your blood pressure, find out how you’ve healed and so on.

But this doesn't mean you're on bed-rest until then (as if that were likely with a newborn). You may be able to start gradually upping your activity before then, says Dr Sarah Davies, specialist in musculoskeletal, sport and exercise medicine at Panacea Health.

‘If you’ve had a healthy pregnancy and a straightforward vaginal delivery, it’s usually safe to start increasing movement a few days after giving birth,’ she says. She suggests starting to do light postnatal exercise such as short walks and building pace, duration and frequency according to how you feel.

C-sections & challenging labours

If you’ve had a C-section or a complicated pregnancy, you’ll need to get advice from your GP before doing any kind of postnatal exercise, Dr Davies adds. Postpartum physiotherapy is also worth investing in if you can afford it, says Pacey. ‘It’s the norm after surgery to have a period of rehab with a physio to return to fitness, and it can be helpful following pregnancy and childbirth.' The physio will look at your alignment, joint movement, breathing and muscle strength, check your stomach for diastasis recti – a postpartum abdominal condition, which we’ll come on to further down – and assess your pelvic floor. From there, they’ll devise a bespoke rehab plan.

Types of workouts

Having a GP’s sign-off or even a physio plan doesn’t mean you’re ready to jump straight into a boot camp class. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of HIIT, but 30 minutes doing jump lunges and burpees could be better spent regaining control of your core and pelvic floor,’ according to postnatal personal trainer Alex Marks.

For their first six weeks back in the gym, he suggests women focus solely on functional and corrective postnatal exercises. More on which later.

First things first: please firmly remove the idea of ‘the rebound’ from your mind.

‘Your body is not a baby pop-up tent,’ says specialist women’s health physiotherapist Clare Pacey. ‘During pregnancy, the deep core stability system [that’s your transverse abdominis, your multifidus and your pelvic floor] is stretched and weakened. Some women will have a C-section, which is a major surgery, and 85% who have a vaginal birth have some sort of perineal trauma. None of this is being said to scaremonger, but to help you appreciate the enormousness of what your body has done and to give it the attention it deserves to recover fully.’

Even with all that going on, the most common barrier to postnatal exercise isn’t physical at all, according to Marks.

‘Be it because of hormones, lack of sleep or coming to terms with your new sense of identity, many of my new-mum clients lack the confidence to get going again,’ he says.‘It’s about finding what works for you. If that’s a home workout with your baby within arm’s reach, that’s okay. This time shouldn’t be about smashing goals – it’s about strengthening your body to meet the demands that come with being a parent.’

The key is kicking comparison to the curb, and focussing on what you have achieved - a lot, FYI.

100%. Your pelvic floor – so called because it encompasses the muscles that line the base of your pelvis – has been through a lot.

During pregnancy, your pelvis helps hold the weight of your baby, but the process can cause the pelvic floor to stretch and weaken. The most obvious sign of a problem? Urinary leakage. ‘This is relatively common after both vaginal and caesarean delivery,’ adds Dr Law.

It’s fixable – but it’s going to take more than a couple of Kegels (contracting and relaxing the muscles that form part of the pelvic floor), rather a whole host of other pelvic floor exercises. ‘Since real life – working out included – is going to demand more of your pelvic floor than that simple contraction, you need to train it in a way that better imitates these everyday movements,’ says Pacey.

How to strengthen your pelvic floor

‘It’s a separation of the abdominal muscles that happens when your growing womb pushes the muscles apart, making them longer and weaker,’ explains Dr Davies. It’s also pretty common – in one study, 60% of participants experienced it six weeks postpartum – and fixable.

Most women will have healed about eight weeks after delivery.

How do you know if you have diastasis recti?

There’s a simple test to check if you have it: lie on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Lift your head off the floor slightly. Now feel between the edges of the muscles above and below your belly button. ‘If you feel your fingers sink a long way down, or if the gap is wider than about three fingers, you may have a diastasis,’ Pacey explains.

And the stories you hear about women developing a permanent paunch after doing some core postnatal exercises before their abs have healed? ‘It’s all scaremongering,’ says Pacey. But getting help from a women’s health physio or a postnatal PT is your best bet for restoring form and function, she adds.

Yes you can. ‘It’s perfectly safe for you to work out, as long as you’re getting enough water,’ says Dr Penelope Law, consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician at The Portland Hospital.

Personal trainer and postpartum exercise expert Charlie Launder suggest keeping these five points in mind before you begin.

1. 'Check that the person doing the workout is qualified in pre- & post-natal exercise. It's important to know they know the area before you trust their expertise. Be very careful about following celebrities and their workouts without knowing what is right for you.'

2. 'Listen to your body. Everyone is very different in their recoveries after birth—even if you were advanced in the gym before pregnancy, your body may need you to take it back to basics now in order to build your strength back up.'

3. 'Don't underestimate rest and recovery. Not only does your body need at least six weeks to recover from the birth, it needs breathing space to adapt to life as a new mum. Don't be tempted to overtrain to try and 'get your body back'—you'll get there but it takes time.'

4. 'Get a check up. I think it's worth getting a post-natal physio checkup to be sure of how ready you are to get back into exercising. That way, you know for sure, and can ask their advice on what workouts they'd advise—and warn against.'

5. 'Don't be afraid to say no. If you are unsure of anything, ask a professional or skip that specific exercise. Remember, as great as they can be, online workouts are not designed specifically for you, so you may need to adapt certain exercises.'