Postnatal Massage | Restore your core ready for exercise

As a new Mum, you may be keen to get back to some form of exercise or begin a new regime entirely. This is possible but your body has experienced massive changes during pregnancy, labour and birth, and so it needs adequate time to rest, recover and heal. 

Experts are now starting to acknowledge it can take around the same time as the pregnancy for your body to return to ‘normal’ and even longer with subsequent births. So you need to be mindful that your strength and, most-importantly your core, needs careful consideration before jumping straight back into high impact workouts. This way you‘re much less likely to experience issues further down the line. 

Postnatal massage is a great way of addressing the muscular strains and imbalances from pregnancy, birth and all the new carrying, feeding and lifting you are now doing. It will help restore your body to a state which is ready for exercise that will heal, not hinder.  

Using advanced massage techniques, such as soft tissue release, muscle energy technique, instrument-assisted massage and dry needling, we can restore function, reduce pain and improve movement and mobility. The treatment is always tailored to the individual and can help new mums in the following ways: 

Reconnect with your core 

Postnatal massage can help you reconnect with your core and regain confidence in your body through touch and breath work. A lack of connection with your core will make it harder to engage it correctly when exercising.  

Being connected to your core and activating it properly will strengthen and stabilise the area and enable you to engage the correct muscles,  preventing pressure being applied down into your pelvic floor. This will also help you to knit back together any separation (known as diastasis recti) and reduce ‘doming’ of your tummy.  

Restore correct breathing patterns 

Growing a baby takes up a lot of our breathing space and postural changes that often occur through pregnancy can damage your breathing patterns. When exercising, breathing correctly is essential in protecting your pelvic floor, in strengthening your core and can improve your cardiovascular performance. 

Through verbal coaching and hands-on treatment we will help restore your ‘360/ north south breath’ (breathing into the full circle of your ribs and right down into your pelvic floor). Soft tissue work will be applied through your core, your breathing muscles in your chest, neck and back and through any postural imbalances that are restricting your breathing.  

Softening tissue 

Tension in your core muscles often happens when they’ve been stretched to grow your baby and the pregnancy/postnatal related postural changes that occur - (hyperextending or shortening the core muscles). This can prevent your tummy muscles from coming back together properly. Your core is also likely to be pretty weak, making you at risk of back issues and any exercise performed inadequately is likely to only exasperate this.  

Hands-on work at the core can ease these tensions and help close any tummy separation by drawing the rectus abdominis muscles back together. It can also reduce any hardness, which often gives the appearance that the stomach is bigger than it actually is. Releasing surrounding muscles that are tight also helps bring your posture back to a more neutral, functional position. 

C-section scar work 

C-section scars can often be tight, pulling when you move in certain ways. It may also be painful when wearing tight clothes due to increased sensitivity. Some, also experience numbness, making it difficult to connect with your core. The scar tissue may be causing your tummy to protrude or tension in the scar may be causing an overhang.  It’s also a contributing factor to lower back pain, hip pain, incorrect breathing patterns, constipation and urinary urgency.  

Massage can reduce tension, stiffness or numbness in the tissue, helping to reduce these issues. This often involves working through the full abdomen, around the scar, along the length of it and through the layers of scar tissue below, using a variety of scar work techniques. 

Restore correct alignment and imbalances between muscle groups 

Major postural changes occur throughout pregnancy as well as postnatally; hips widening, over extension or shortening through the core and rounding of the shoulders are common.  

Exercising like this can mean incorrect muscles are firing, so potentially worsening postural imbalances, your core strength and increasing the chance of pain and injury.

Postnatal massage can help restore a functional posture through hands-on work and other advanced techniques, lengthening any tight muscles and helping to activate any muscles that aren’t firing correctly. 

Strengthen pelvic floor muscles 

A functional pelvic floor and being able to activate it correctly will help prevent urinary urgency, incontinence, vaginal or rectal prolapse, help strengthen and flatten your tummy and make sex feel better too!

You may be unconsciously ‘gripping’ your stomach, over activating your pelvic floor.

Being able to relax your pelvic floor is as important as being able to engage it; if it’s constantly engaged, it can’t contract when it needs to. Massage and verbal coaching will help you to relax these muscles and teach you the correct way to engage your core when exercising.  

Hannah West is a highly qualified soft tissue therapist, specialising in pre and postnatal massage therapy as well as a mum of two boys, both born by C-section. Her treatment’s focus on pain reduction, restoring function and improving movement. With her interest in health and wellbeing, she herself enjoys yoga, weight training, boxing and running. In this blog Hannah discusses the importance of restoring your core through postnatal massage before returning to exercise.