Congratulations Leah! What a pleasure to have your wise influence available on line. Your emphasis on slow and gentle, connection to the breath, talking about the baby throughout the session...I can happily and proudly send all the many mamas I work with as childbirth educator, doula and midwife to you on PA.

Joni - Thank you so much! I always feel that women and professionals do not know where to start after labor and pregnancy. Slow and steady, safe and gentle is how we should start. Too often women are in a hurry to "get back in shape" and too often has the potential to create problems physically and emotionally for new mothers. Being kind to the post-natal body is the biggest challenge postpartum women face today. I hope that my classes will help women love and honor their body even will it's changes

Dear Leah,
still have 3 months to go but already checking out your postnatal classes From which week postpartum could this class be done?

Viola,

You can do this gentle, short class within a couple of weeks of giving birth if you feel comfortable. If not, I would recommend you focus on doing the breathing exercises and slowly begin to integrate some of the other exercises.

Dear Leah,
I'm 5 weeks postpartum via csection and I don't have diastasis recti. Would you recommend that I add or avoid any exercises from this series. I followed your classes throughout my pregnancy and swear by them. They gave not only physical health but mental and emotional health. You're amazing!
Glory

Glorimar,

Congratulations! It sounds like you are feeling great, and I am so happy for you, that is wonderful. I am also so happy that the pre-natal Pilates work kept you feeling good and strong during your pregnancy - yay!! I would love to hear more of your birth story If you'd like to share, please email me leah@livelifepilates.com

This is a great class for you after a caesarean birth, it's very gentle and restorative. My biggest recommendation for this series is that you listen to your body and take it nice and slow. You are not only recovering from the effects of your pregnancy, but also from the major procedure that is a Caesarean birth.

continued in next post...

continued...

Even if you feel great, move forward in your exercise progression at a steady, gradual and gentle pace. The first 6 months or so, you will be to pay extra attention to your healing. I always tell mothers that have had a Caesarean birth that they may need to modify some of the prone positions (lying on your tummy) the way we did during the pre-natal classes. And initially, stretching your arms over your head may create a sensation of pull on the incision site (not always), so be mindful of that. As far as re-introducing abdominal exercises, the exercises in this series are all safe for you, but you may need to incorporated them a bit more slowly, dependent on how your body responds after you perform the initial exercises.

I hope that this helps a bit.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

All the best to you, and soak up all that newborn baby goodness!

Leah

Lovely class!
Thank you for your ideas for the very first post-natal classes.

Leah have recently had a prenatal and a post natal client and your classes have been a life saver. Could you please do a few classes for women who might still be recovering from diastasis rectii ?
Thanks !

agirlabtpilates - I would love to do more classes on DRA recovery, I will definitely discuss it with Kristi for when I return to PA some time in 2015. Thank you!