After your baby is born, being active will help your body return to normal.
Exercise will: • Speed up healing • Improve your blood circulation • Make your muscles strong • Keep your pelvic organs toned • Give relief from hemorrhoids • Help your bowels and bladder to work well • Give you energy • Help you to feel better and more relaxed.
If your hospital offers a postpartum exercise class, try to attend. It will give you a chance to move around. This will help you get back into normal life.
You have seen the exercises in this section. Most of them were part of your prenatal program. Start them as soon as you can after birth and do them when you return home. Start gently and allow your muscles to get stronger slowly. Start by doing each exercise 3 to 5 times. Slowly increase to 5 to 10 times each.
On the day of delivery — in bed:
☛Do foot and ankle circles
☛Do pelvic tilts (lying on your back with your knees bent)
☛Do pelvic floor exercises.
After 24 hours add:
☛Stomach (abdominal) muscles tightening (lying on your back with your knees bent)
After two days add:
☛Curl-ups — before you do curl-ups, check to see if you have an abdominal separation. If you do, you must support your abdominal muscles while you exercise.
☛Diagonal curl-ups
☛Alternate arm stretches
☛Elbow circles
You may want to relax as part of your exercise program. Being relaxed matters as much now as it did when you were pregnant.