First Steps to Post natal Exercising

From days two to three, after giving birth, you can start doing pelvic floor exercises. These involve an “engage and lift” action of the muscles at the base of your pelvis. You should not feel your abdominal muscles working hard, maximum of 20-30% activity, or a pushing or straining feeling. The main points to remember when doing these exercises is that you keep breathing normally and you don’t use you bottom muscles, the squeeze, – no one should be able to tell that you are doing your pelvic floor exercises!

Initially when doing pelvic floor exercises, you may find that the muscle contraction feels different than it did before the birth, particularly if you have had a vaginal delivery. This is a common feeling and strength will improve in time as you do your pelvic floor exercises. Strong pelvic floor muscles are important for continence as well as looking after your back and pelvis generally.

Aim to engage and lift your pelvic floor muscle and hold for as long as you are able too, ideally about ten seconds to start with. This may initially be only 2-3 seconds, but you will improve and can build to longer hold phases. You should feel a relaxation of the muscle as you ‘let go’. If you don’t feel the muscle relax, it means the muscle has fatigued and so already relaxed. Hold for less time until you can feel the ‘let go’. The key initially is to build a cognitive control, you are turning the muscle on and off which helps build your neural pathways again. Aim to build up how long you can hold each pelvic floor contraction for, ideally reaching 10 seconds by 12 weeks post-natal. It is recommended you build up to doing 10 x contractions of 10 second holds, 3 times per day.