Pregnancy is a very special phase in a woman's life: her body is the home of a little human for nine months. In doing so, he achieves truly top performances that do not leave him unscathed. A strained pelvic floor, stretch marks, extra weight and soft tissue are often the result. We explain how you can exercise and eat healthy after pregnancy
Sports after pregnancy: Which sports are ideal to start with?
Once the baby is born, new mothers often have a lot to do. After a while, however, the desire usually arises to get back to your old form.Certain exercises, healthy eating and sufficient relaxation breaks help you feel more comfortable in your own skin again.
In the first period after birth, the so-calledpuerperal bed, exercise is taboo. The body needs around eight weeks to heal injuries and recover from the strain of childbirth. It is also a valuable phase of rapprochement and bonding between mother and baby.
When you have regained your strength and want to get some exercise, walks are ideal to get your circulation going again. Also gentle exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor, like herbe described here, can be installed quite soon after birth. Pelvic floor exercises help relieve mild bladder weakness that many women experience after giving birth.
Don't overtax your body, gradually rebuild your muscles
It is important not to overwhelm yourself and to always be carefulwith your own bodyto deal with. The abdominal muscles are also often severely weakened by pregnancy. Sometimes a so-called diastasis recti has developed, a small gap between the straight abdominal muscles. If you start training too early and too intensively, you risk that this gap will become even larger and the body will be further weakened. So you should wait at least until after the postpartum period to start doing abdominal exercises and get the doctor's approval. If the pelvic floor feels stable again, you can specifically rebuild your abdominal and back muscles. Gymnastics exercises, Pilates and yoga are particularly suitable for this.
Losing weight after pregnancy
Most women gain between five and 18 kilograms during pregnancy. Of course, this weight doesn't disappear immediately after the birth. And it's not just the stomach that has grown - the skin and tissue in most parts of the body have stretched. It's only normal for your body to look different after pregnancy than before. But through exercise and a healthy diet it is possibleto lose excess weight.
Women who breastfeed their babies in particular will notice that their bodies are doing a lot of hard work. This means that up to an additional 500 kilocalories are consumed per day. Even though this obviously involves caring for the newborn baby, the weight loss that comes with it is a pleasant side effect for many women.
Healthy eating and not a diet: Eating should under no circumstances become a stress factor
At the same time, it is important that new mothers treat themselves lovingly even if they are not back to normal within a few months. Everyday life with a newborn is often exciting and beautiful, but also intense and exhausting. It's hardly surprising if you don't always have the time to eat a healthy, balanced diet or exercise. A healthy diet is an important building block for general well-being because it provides the energy you need to get through the day well. But food shouldn't be another stress factor that puts you under pressure.
