Exercise during Pregnancy
At Foundations Pelvic Health, we are a team of perinatal and pelvic floor therapy specialists. We are dedicated to helping women feel empowered throughout their pregnancy and feel prepared for labor and delivery, as well as postpartum recovery!
Exercising During Pregnancy
Our goal at Foundations Pelvic Health is to help you maintain your activity throughout your pregnancy! We know how much exercise can impact both physical and mental well-being, and during pregnancy is no exception.
Social media and the internet can be a confusing place with people telling you that certain exercises or workouts are dangerous or not safe (many of these claims are not true!) - however, whether you lift, swim, go to pilates, run marathons or take bootcamp - we are here to help guide you throughout your pregnancy to promote movement, keep you doing the exercise you love, and limit aches & pains.
Benefits of Exercise when You’re Pregnant:
Eases constipation
Reduces back pain
May decrease your risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and cesarean birth
Promotes healthy weight gain during pregnancy
Improves your overall fitness and strengthens your heart and blood vessels
During pregnancy, the body is ever-changing. Some changes that we typically see are:
the pelvis tipping forward
mid-back stiffening
low back curving more
hips and legs turning out more
Your pelvic floor PT at Foundations Pelvic Health will take a full-body approach when it comes to the assessment and creating your plan of care. Below are some areas that we focus on during pregnancy:
Strengthening:
Overall strength training is so important throughout pregnancy. What may be weak or tight will likely continue to be weak or tight and can cause imbalances in your body, which can lead to different pains and aches as your body changes.
Strengthening specific muscle groups, as well as global strength training can be helpful to maintain pain-free movement throughout pregnancy, as well as prepare you for the heavy lifting that caring for a newborn requires (those car seats and strollers aren’t light!)
Balance Training
Your center of gravity is always changing during pregnancy as the baby grows and your posture changes, so it is important to focus on balance exercises. We incorporate single leg exercises, such as:
lunges
single leg RDLs
split squats
standing marches
…and more
These unilateral exercises not only challenge your muscles to continually adapt, but make you feel more stable during day-to-day tasks.
Core and Hip Muscle Training
Your core muscles involve the muscles of the abdominals, back, and pelvis - your transverse abdominis, pelvic floor, glutes, lats, and obliques just to name a few!
All of these muscles will support your changing body. They are also involved in lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling - all of the activities we already do every day…and will need to do even more postpartum.
We’ll chat with you about considerations for diastasis recti (ab separation) during core exercise, and also give you specific ways to train your core as you progress. We will help you to make any modifications necessary to continue to strengthen your abdominals, glutes, and pelvic floor throughout your pregnancy.
Mobility
We will also keep tabs on how your back, hips, and shoulders are moving throughout your pregnancy as we tend to see tightness arise in those areas with postural changes. We promote increased range of motion through your mid-back with exercises such as:
cat cow
thread the needle
doorway pec stretches
We really focus on hip mobility starting in the third trimester to promote opening of the pelvis for birth, with exercises like figure 4, hip 90-90, inner thigh rock backs, child’s pose, and more.
Support during pregnancy helps to support postpartum recovery
Our method of helping our pregnant patients includes fully customizing your exercise routine as your pregnancy progresses, making modifications or recommending other external supports (like belly bands or SI belts) as needed.
Our pelvic floor PTs work with women throughout their entire pregnancy to keep you moving and mobile through all the trimesters. We also love to support during your postpartum recovery to help you get back into your usual activities safely!