What can you do during pregnancy to prepare for the first weeks and months after you’ve given birth? How can you build your own support team to get through the challenging period of brand spanking new motherhood? What might a roadmap to recovery look like?
If you’re a new mom and working out is a big part of your identity, you may be itching to regain a sense of normalcy. But it’s important to remember what your body just went through and give yourself the time. Physical therapist Dr. Shefali Christopher shares her own experience in her postpartum body.
What if you’re doing everything right—exercising, eating right, self-care and meditation—and you’re still not okay? After Kathleen Shannon gave birth to her son, she appeared to have it all together. But she just didn’t. Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Kathleen was suffering from postpartum depression.
We have complex relationships with our bodies. Women harbor certain expectations and assumptions about what our bodies are supposed to look like and what they are capable of. And it can be tough to come to terms with the reality when it doesn’t quite line up with what we had in mind.
The first few days and weeks postpartum are challenging. Not only are you resting and recovering from the massive feat of bringing a baby into the world— but you’re also transforming in your relationships. Alongside this, I found that communicating clearly to others and setting good boundaries was also quite hard. How do you communicate to those around you what you need and want? How do you tell them how to help, and when it’s too much? In this post I want to share a strategy I love for preparing for your postpartum period: writing out to-do lists for other people ahead of time. Here are three lists you can use in your own planning.
When you’re a new parent, people want to help. But they don’t always know what to do. And you won’t always know what to ask for – that’s where the 3 Essential Postpartum Lists come in.