About New Mom Exercise for Postpartum Weight Loss Video
Co-owner Kathleen Donahoe was interviewed by partner hospital Piedmont Hospital about the best tips for exercise and weight loss for new moms — hear her tips and see some great mom and baby exercises.
New Mom Exercise for Postpartum Weight Loss Video Transcript
In terms of someone, they’ve just had a baby, often they think I’m not pregnant anymore and go back and do exactly what I used to do. Unfortunately, that’s not true. Even when the baby’s out, you still have a lot of the same physical issues that you have during pregnancy in terms of the hormones that are in your body, your abdominals are all stretched out. You’ve also got a new mental challenge when you’re a new mom in terms of sleeplessness. There’s again some hormonal factors that are happening there with postpartum depression. So new moms are dealing with a lot.
One of the most obvious ways that exercise helps a new mom is the mental benefits of it. We know exercise helps everyone mentally, but for new moms in particular those endorphins are so so helpful. New moms are dealing with sleeplessness or often dealing with feelings of kind of being isolated in the house, getting out and exercising is really helpful for that.
In terms of the physical changes that happen after someone has a baby, exercise can help with that too. So getting their abdominals pulled back together, helping their pelvic floor, helping avoid the back pain that so many new moms have. After someone has a baby it’s really helpful to start with some Pilates work and then you want to move into cardio, strength training and that sort of exercise.
For a new mom it is very hard to get out of the house. We all know that, and it’s also hard to know that you’re getting a type of exercise that’s safe for you. So people are sometimes cautious. There’s been a lot of research about mom exercising with baby, and an interesting thing, it’s a mom that exercises with her baby is more likely to lose weight and keep it off. Secondly, exercising with other moms is so helpful for the psychological benefit. Being in a community kind of hearing what other moms are dealing with is really really helpful.
Most importantly when coming back to exercise after having a baby you want to make sure you have your doctor’s consent, but you also want to start slow. It’s really easy to head back, go really crazy and into yourself so start cautiously, make sure you want to get some abdominal work in there before you go into cardio and that sort of work. Even if you aren’t able to find a mom and baby fitness class in your area, if you can get some friends together that have babies get outside get exercising, it’s really really helpful physically and mentally for you and for your friends, too.
